Garry2Rs

Steelhead/Salmon fishermen often use very specialized equipment. However the basic techniques for river fishing are the same for Bass, Pike, Musky, Trout, Steelhead or Salmon.

As a beginner, I will assume you will have to use your basic spinning outfit...It will work fine to cast small lures and to drift baits in a river.

If you are spooled up with eight to ten pound test mono or fluoro you are all set. If you are using braid, I would suggest a short leader of clear line at least for drifting baits when the water is clear.

To get started you can simply cast a small crankbait like a Rapala, a spinner such as a Mepp's or a spoon like the Little Cleo, down-stream, across the current and clank it back as it swings below you.

With baits such as worms, minnows, flies or roe you cast up-stream in running water. You will need to get the bait close to the bottom. This can be done by weighting the line, or with a three way swivel and a dropper with lead shot attached. Alternate methods include surgical tubing with pencil weights or Slinkies etc. The point is you need to adjust the weight so that the sinkers tick bottom, but don't snag...

These baits can be fished with or without a bobber. You cast them up-stream and pick up slack line as they drift back toward you.

Longer rods, lighter lines and special reels can make this type of fishing easier, but to get started, you can use your basic spinning gear.

Good luck

Garry2R's

Put me on the list too.

I have had nothing but great service from Shimano.

Greetings to all my semi-frozen friends!

I hope that the Fall Season is kind to you and that the big ones are biting "up north."

A good friend told me that he was knocking the socks off of Muskies by trolling on Stony this last week.

Good luck to all of you "cold water" fishers.

Buck and I are safely tucked away in our winter home in Arizona.

It is still in the mid-80's down here and the heavy weeds make the fishing quite tough.

Senko's cast over weed beds that come 2 - 3 feet from the surface, in about 8 feet of water, seem to be the ticket.

These spots are hard to find, without disturbing them, so a lot of what we did today was research for later dates...

I guess the cooler, by comparison nights, that we are now having are starting to kill the Shad. The hot set-up seems to be to let a worm sink, onto a clump of weeds, then pop it hard to make it jump-up, before settling again...With no deep water, this can draw strikes from the sluggish late summer fish.

Personally, I am looking forward to the first few really "cold" nights that will knock the shallowest weeds down. This will open more of the water and signal the start of the rattle-bait season.

This year I have acquired an old tri-hull bass boat that I plan to leave down here. No more towing the Ranger cross country twice a year...

This boat is 15.5 feet and dates from the early 80's. The design is only really suitable for smaller waters, but it will do the job down here nicely.

It's funny in a way, this summer my 18.5 Ranger was starting to feel quite small. I guess I have that bass-boat disease called foot-itess...You know...Life would be perfect if only the boat was a foot longer and had another 50HP...grin.

I can tell you that it only took a couple of minutes to realize that the Ranger is a virtual aircraft carrier compared to this rig...hahaha.

Today we got the new-old boat in the water for a shake-down cruise on the Colorado River system. We only spent a couple of hours out in the heat.

Buck had a couple of swims, and I caught one bass. It was a skinny 15 inch specimen that hit a pink generic Senko worm.

Later we had an extended chat with a guy from San Diego who is fishing a three day tournament that starts tomorrow.

He gifted us with a package of custom poured Senko's in a special Shad pattern. These baits are from a California tackle shop and aren't even available on the Yamamoto web site. They are custom made for this shop and are supposed to be deadly...

We were on our way home when we received this gift, so we will have to let you know how they workout.

Tight-Lines...

Garry2R's

In my opinion it is very hard to guess the weight of large bass. A number of years ago a friend and I won a small tournament where we had five fish that I would have sworn were all 4.5 or 5 pounds...

At the weigh-in our biggest fish was under 4 pounds!

Since then I have caught, and weighed, several LMBass in the 5 pound range. These fish are generally about 24 inches long, and much bigger than what you often see called five pounds on TV...This one weighed 5.5 pounds and hit a generic Senko type worm on ten pound, red Powerpro, with no leader.

The largest LMBass I have caught, in season, was last Opening Day, in the rain, with Albert, aka "HTHM."

This fish weighed in at 7.3 pounds on a digital scale and hit a green Yum Buzz Frog, on 20 pound mono, in heavy weeds.

Here's a picture of the same fish taken as Albert lifted it out of the net. I think the actual size is more apparent in this shot.

Garry2R's

Congrats on the sens win, as a Leafs fan, I can sympathise with all those sens fans. It must be hard to have gone so long without a Stanley cup. 41 years for the Leafs seems like a drop in the bucket compared to what the poor sens fans have had to endure, 1927 is a LOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGGG time ago...... 83 years. More than double the length of time the Leafs have endured. Chin up sens fans! it will end eventually

 

jjcanoe

Wait a minute! For most of those 81 years Ottawa didn't have a team...

Unless you're saying that neither did Toronto...hahaha

Montreal is a threat to win against anyone.

Toronto is a threat to lose against anyone.

The poor old Leafs are also a good bet to finish last again this year, regardless of where they are in the standings right now.

Mark my words...

By the First-of-the-year, Toronto media will be screaming for changes to "Save the Season." The Leafs will once again trade away the future, in hopes of gaining a play-off spot.

George Santayana said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." For forty-odd years Leaf's management has been living proof of this!

As Singing dog noted this information is from 2007. If we believe the line companies claims of annually "new and improved" products, perhaps this data is completely out of date.

I thought the tests were a little vague too...

What is the relationship between how a human eye sees a given line underwater and how a fish sees or doesn't see it?

How is knot strength affected by soaking the line? If the outer layer softens when soaked, do the knots hold better?

If the outer layer softens does abrasion resistance decrease?

If you are casting and retrieving a crankbait etc, does the speed of the line through the air essentially dry the line at the beginning of each cast?

Is Fluorocarbon totally overrated?

If it's only real attributes are slightly lower visibility and it sinks, is it worth the much higher cost?

I use braid, with a leader. Since Seaguar invented Fluorocarbon and offers special leader formulations, that is what I'm going to use.

One interesting thing to think about...The best Bass fisherman in the world, Kevin Van Dam, has won 4.9 million dollars and numerous titles fishing with relatively cheap BPS Fluorocarbon.

Garry2R's

I have seen something like that in Bass magazines.

Garry2rs

I think that smaller fish tend to school, while many big fish have a range. In any water the best fish will have the best feeding/resting spot.

Bill Siemantel, writing about huge 15 - 20 pound bass, observed that big fish had a home range that was close to the shallows, for spawning and had access to deep water.

These fish hold in areas where everything they needed is close at hand. They move up and down their range as food and season dictates.

These big bass are the top predictor in their waters...

I wonder if the same is true when even larger Pike or Musky are present in the environment?

Mutual protection is one reason to school, that might be why smaller fish in all species seem to school-up.

Older/larger fish often seem to be loners. Perhaps because they no longer have any peers...However, in big water even big Musky can be found in schools.

Garry2R's

Today, I am a lake fisherman, when I was heading for a Trout or Salmon run, I paid more attention to stream condition reports.

My belief is that the best time to fish is when you can, and the best place is where you can. Therefore, I don't worry about what others have experienced.

I have often heard negative reports from people coming off the water and had a fine day myself.

You get what you expect most of the time...

I expect to have a good day!

That being said, if someone told me they were finding fish shallow or on deep weeds etc; I might look there first.

Garry2R's

I found the board in 2000-2001, I had just retired and had begun fishing seriously again, after a long absence.

There were a lot of new line types, fluoro, co-poly, fused, and braid and many new classifications of lures. I was looking for some in-put and clarification...

The main reason I hung here is that there was one guy posting here who spoke English as a second language. He was out camping and fishing every weekend. On Monday he wrote about his successes and failures. It was interesting to read about his successes, but he wrote so honestly about his mis-adventures that, with his slightly fractured English, I would find myself almost falling on the floor laughing. These posts became the high point of my week. In time he has become one of my closest friends and one of the best fishermen I know.

I was investigating braided line at that time, and wrote about my thoughts. Many people had tried it before me, but most didn't like it. I think we were still struggling with the idea of using 10 and 20 pound braid in-place of 6 and 10 pound mono. Eventually these discussions evolved into a mighty thread called "LINE" that went on for so long it was finally closed by TJ. I won an OFC hat by squeezing in the last post on the stroke of Mid-night...I guess I'm still closing threads...grin.

Some of the guys from back then are still here, others are long gone. At least one has past-away. A few like myself drift in and out, but like a bad penny, always return.

Garry2R's

Everyone knows the old Ontario saying:

"Spring is here and the Leaf's are falling."

By the way, Ottawa and Buffalo both lost last night...

Is it too soon to start planning the parade?

Looks like a great summer.

Are those all river fish?

My friend was out today and over the weekend, and also found it slow.

Last week he was getting them pretty good...What changed?

I will be out there tomorrow, so we'll see what happens.

Winners fans have parades.

Leaf fans have excuses!

Nice work Albert!

Can I drop mine off for the winter?

You can renew it while I'm down south...

HAHAHA!

I will order a kit in a couple of weeks, once I am set-up again down south. Fisherman's Warehouse has several locations in California.

There are several sizes of tubing offered. It is unclear, in their advertising, if the glue causes the tubing to shrink tightly to the line or not.

Providing that a tight fit is possible, I see this as potentially a great product for use with heavy leader material. With Fluoro and Mono over twenty pound test the strongest knots get bulkier and bulkier until they're impossible to tie properly.

Garry2rs

The names on the sweaters change but the show remains the same...

By Xmas the Leafs drop to last place in their division.

The media will howl for changes and management will respond by trading their draft picks or some youngster, that shows promise, for a couple of old retreads.

By the second season, in April, Toronto will be fighting for the last play-off spot. It's a toss-up if they will make it, but either way they will be golfing before the end of May.

For further information check out NHL Hockey years 1966 through 2009

This is quite new.

It seems to be a lot like heat shrink tubing, but uses a glue to bond mono or fluorocarbon to each other or to braid WITHOUT A KNOT!

It might not be available in North America yet, but I have heard that it is.

Check this out!

The idea is simple enough.

To attach a hook or lure to your line:

1. Slide a tube onto the end of your line.

2. Add the lure or hook and tuck the tag end back through the tube.

3. Put a couple of drops of glue onto the joint and position the tube over the joint and squeeze the joint gently.

To joint two lines, slip a tube onto line #1, then push line #2 through the tube from the opposite end. Glue and position the tube over the joint.

Assuming that the tube tightens up when it hits the glue, this might solve a lot of problems for guys that want to use long leaders that they can wind passed the tip guide, or guys using heavy lines where the knots can be quite bulky.

Just like the 60's...Better living through Chemistry...grin.

Garry2R's

This question is way to broad.

Are you fishing from shore, wading or using a boat? What season? How is the water clarity? Rocks or weeds? Moving of still water?

If I could only have one bait for each species, this is what I would choose.

Musky - Black and Orange or plain Black Bucktail in-line Spinner, or Bucktail Spinnerbait.

Bass - Watermelon-Green or Rootbeer-Brown Senko style worm.

Panfish - Trout or Crappie Magnet Grub and Jig in Chartreuse or Dude Special. Click Here

Garry2R's

Dunnville, Grand River.

Hi Lew;

I have a survival suit that I don't need.

It will fit you width-wise, but will be too long.

If you take it to a tailor etc. you can have it adjusted to fit you. Since it is free, the cost of remaking it will be less than the cost of a new suit.

Garry

Around here the water is about 58*.

Shallow weeds are dying, or dead.

Find the deeper green weeds and fish divers like Wally-Diver's or Tail-Dancer's. Plastics are not.

Garry2R's

Hi John, it's good to hear from you again.

We wondered were you were for the last couple of months.

Sorry to hear about your health issues, but glad to hear you are on the mend.

Garry2rs

I cast bait-casters with two hands, that's the way I started as a kid and the habit stuck.

In a practical sense, I think that two hands makes sense, since it puts my left in position to take the hand-off as the rod goes from right to left.

I generally change hands while the bait is in the air and thumb with my left, most of the time.

I also cast spinning rods with two hands...It just seems like it's easier to aim that way...it feels steadier...like a rifle vs a sixgun.

Fish abuse makes no sense to me, but then I never slapped my kids either.