singingdog

Strange bite: the big ones came on a topwater over 17-20 of open water after completly ignoring jerkbaits. They would just slurp it down, almost like a trout rise.

Swimming jigs and flipping/pitching jigs are 2 different beasts. Compared to pitching/flipping jigs, swimming jigs usually have -lighter wire hooks -sparser weed guards -inline eyes -heads designed to come through grass easily (almost like a spinnerbait) -sparser skirts I usually use a swimming jig as a search bait, very similar to a spinnerbait. If I'm on water that sees lots of anglers (and lots of spinnerbaits) I will almost always throw a swimjig instead of a spinnerbait. Flipping/pitching jigs I use for targetting specific spots where I believe a fish to be holding. It's not about the retrieval, it's about the initial placement. If I don't get hit in that spot, I just crank it in to pitch again, not really fishing the water between me and the spot I was pitching to. You can easily swim a pitching/flipping jig, but it will often turn over at high retrieval speeds. You already got the 2 best pieces of advice 1. take nothing but a jig out for several trips 2. don't listen to the voodoo: jigs are the simplest and most overthought pieces of tackle in the industry.

Nice smallie. I would have guessed it was more than 3.76.

Yea, the smallies were all over the place. Search baits were key, but tough to get hit on.

There is nothing like a riversmallie for surprising you with it's fighting ability. I fish a stretch of river for rainbows all winter. When the smallies finally move up and I get the first one on a L action rod, I always think I have hit a monster rainbow. Always turns out to be a 14" smallie that fights harder than a 'bow much bigger. Southern Ontario is a haven for riversmallies.

Did you notice the water temp? I was out on Sunday and found the LM right against the shore, not long off their nests. Temps were right around 68. Smallies seemed really spread out....no well-formed weedlines yet.

Which is exactly what you would do with a slip bobber system to figure out what depth they are feeding. Both systems require some fiddling to figure out what depth to present your slammer....the slip bobber system is just simpler.

A dropshot rig is designed to suspend a bait off the bottom and keep it in the strike zone until you move it. If you are fishing from shore, you could achieve the same thing by using a slip bobber set-up (no drop shot weight). Set the stop for your bobber so that it will stop your lure/bait a few feet off the bottom: voila!

Yep, some of the best bass lakes in the county are in the HFR......good luck finding them

The issue you describe is not inherent to braid on a spinning reel: there must be an issue with that particular reel, or something in your use of it. I'm with Bdox: 5 years of PowerPro on all my reels, including 5 spinning reels, and trouble-free fishing. I do not use mono backing or electrical tape on my spools. Honestly, the "voodoo" around braided line perplexes me.

No thanks. I prefer to blame the kid who stuffs a rag into a gas tank and attempts to set it on fire. "Blame the system" is just another dodge for kids that don't see the line between a good time and criminal, dangerous, anti-social behaviour.

I don't think there's any comparison between the mojos and the compres....compres are hands-down a nicer rod IMHO.

It works on all kinds of hungry fish. Even better than marabou is a rabbit-strip leech pattern. The hide side of the rabbit strip holds scent forever, and nothing imitates a leech better.

tie some of those on dropshot hooks (I guess that would be a fly) and try it on a ds rig.....deadly, and waaay cheaper than using plastics.

I know that lake. It was stocked at one time, but hasn't had rainbows put in it for years. If I was going up that way, I would go to some of the other nearby lakes and try for specks or lakers.

I had a crazy follow last night. I was walking a big Rap Skitterwalk across a bay and a good-sized (upper 40s) musky surfaced right behind the lure and followed it right to the boat. I twitched, he twitched....I paused, he paused....I sped up, he sped up. I could see most of the creatures back, and half the tail above the surface. When he arrived at the side of the yak, I tried figure8ing, but the ski just coasted off. That experience, plus a couple of other good follows since the opener have me wondering.....what's your favourite follow-up presentation? I tried a swim jig last night, have had some luck with jigs in the past. Should I be trying something different?

I tried them again last night. They seem to do alright at lower speeds, but just quit turning when burned. They are a colorado blade, and do require a bit of a pump to get them started. The jury is out on whether or not they will catch fish (everything else will be forgiven if they do!). Thanks for the replies guys.

You might try a dressed treble on the tail....that sometimes gets the tail biters. I have put them on a few jointed swimbaits without affecting the action at all.

I picked up a couple of Llungen inlines for musky the other day: great looking skirts and construction. BUT, each one of them stopped spinning after about 10 casts. I can get them to spin by giving the rod really hard jerks, but that gets tiring real fast. Anybody else have this experience? Any fixes? No, there are not weeds caught in or around the blades or clevises.

I periodically flip jigs for musky when they aren't responding to faster presentations. Am I targetting bass? Absolutely not. Does it look like I'm bass fishing? Absolutely (except for the tieable wire leader). I do the same for walleye. On one lake I fish, the most productive method for catching them once the sun is up is to prowl a weedline in 8-10' of water and flip smaller profile "bass" jigs and tubes into weed pockets. In both cases, I am targetting one species, both of them in season. I have been approached by folks slow-trolling for walleye and accused of OOS fishing for bass. If they are well-intentioned, I don't mind it (even though they could just as likely hook a bass with their presentation as I could with mine).

I've thrown both the Sebile and the Koppers swimbaits for musky with very little to show for them. It could just be the water I am fishing, but a jointed rapala has outfished them both times I have given them a good chance. Guys on saltwater seem to do well with them. There was a really good thread on Tackle Tour about the sebiles...the verdict wasn't good.

Uni knot for almost everything, on both braid and hybrid line. I used the palomar for awhile, but didn't notice any difference in knot strength. I use it all of the time to tie on lures, snaps, swivels. I use uni to uni most of the time to connect two lines. The uni/uni connection works really well even if line diameters are different.

Yep, they started in Kushog and are spreading through the system now. Every year, they seem to show up in a different lake on the Trent feeder system.

That's a nice fish for up this way. Nicely done.

Definitely ready. Yakfishing for musky: doesn't get much better than that.