Fishing Forum

First of all thanks to everyone who gave some helpful advice in my last thread. Today I went back to our favorite watering hole (Merril Creek reservoir in NJ) and we tried to switch things up a bit. First of all the bait shop was out of shiners so we got the herring instead. Secondly as we were trolling our bait we hooked the Herring through the mouth instead of through the dorsal fin and we had no problem setting the hook and catching fish this way, so that was a very good tip as I'm sure it looks much more natural pulling the bait along that way.

The unusual thing about today is we had no luck at all with smallmouths like we normally catch by trolling, none of the "usual" spots were turning up anything, but as we experimented we began to land chain pickerel in the 16" range. We got 3 or 4 of those along with a couple of smaller ones, but it was strange because we've never caught them before. I was thinking it would be tricky to remove the hook from the pickerels mouth because of those wicked looking teeth but they were kind enough to actually bite off the line every time we tried to get them in the boat.

Now what I'm not sure of is whether or not we were getting Pickerel because of the bait we were using (herring instead of shiners) or because of the weather (we had a heavy rainfall the day before). Any insight about this would be appreciated. I'm not sure where bass would be active on the day after a nasty storm like that, but we couldn't even get a decent strike anywhere that usually yields fish. I did catch a monster sunfish though, we always have a good laugh about the sunnies we catch because at times we'll hook a bluegill thats barely any bigger than the minnow we're using. Today's bluegill was a large fat one though I wish I had a picture.

Now on to some more questions. First of all, on the advice from a person working at a Cabellas in pennsylvania we picked up some 4" live minnow Berkley Gulp Alive! baits. We got them in baitfish color and we were fishing them today the same as we would with the Herring, with a light sinker trolling in the 10-20' range. We hooked them through the "lip" area of the bait, which I'm wondering if it was a mistake to do that. We got easily two dozen solid strikes on the Gulp baits and managed to not hook a single fish. The frustrating part was that these weren't just tentative nibbles but forceful hits and yet we couldn't hook anything. Is there something else we need to be doing to actually a hook a fish using these kinds of plastics? Should we be looking into jig heads or texas/carolina style rigs? Maybe a bigger hook? (we were using size 8 hooks). I'm just not sure what we were doing wrong.

Also part of our frustration is one of the main features of Merril Creek is large amounts of flooded timber scattered all over the lake. We've tried to fish it several times using shiners or herring with no luck. I normally put a bobber on and try to lob it into open spaces in the timber and have had no success. I've also tried fishing the edges of the timber with a trolling technique with the minnow 10 or 15 feet down with a light sinker. Clearly this is not the way to go as I've never even had a strike trying this, but I just can't imagine that this flooded timber isn't home to all kinds of bass. The timber can run out into water as deep as 20 or 25 feet, starting from the shoreline. If anyone has any advice or tips for catching fish in this kind of timber I'd love to hear it.

I'm including a couple of pictures, the first one is a picture of one of the larger pickerel we caught today, the next couple are pictures of the flooded timber I'm so eagerly trying to fish.
[signature]

Tough crowd I see. I think I may have answered one of my own questions, I did a little research on the Gulp Alive! minnow bait that I was using and I see in the promotional video I was watching that they were fishing it on a jig head. I'm thinking that probably the hook I was using on the bait was too small (size 8 hook) compared to the larger and more exposed hook of the jig head.

We're heading out again to the lake tommorow morning (this morning now I guess) and hopefully the results will be better, because I was getting strikes all over the place with it last time we were out. Weather conditions should also be more favorable this time around.

I'd still love to see what ideas people have about fishing that flooded timber I posted pictures of.
[signature]

The timber looks like a good place to throw a spinnerbait or a square billed. Bounce the crank against the wood as you fish. Look for trees that stand out from the others. Rain shouldn't have alot to do with bass the day before, but a cold front will.
[signature]

Went back out today. It was a rough day out there. Only caught one fish (another good sized pickerel around 20 inches). It was a pretty windy and frustrating fishing day all around, as the bites were few and far between. Caught the Pickerel in an odd location, theres a spot at Merril Creek where 15 yards from the shore its already 60 feet deep, pretty steep dropoff. We hit that around mid morning and I caught the Pickerel again on live bait. There wasn't much in the way of weeds near there which is what made the catch surprising.

I actually just recently bought a rapala crank bait, in baitfish coloring (dark on top light on the bottom) and was tossing that out today. Was having a hell of a time keeping it from tangling on the cast. Should I be using a swivel to attach a crankbait or should I be tying the line directly on?

I'm a bit apprehensive about tossing a crankbait into the timber and intentionally trying to hit trees, but if thats what works I'll give it a shot.

I also hooked up my first texas rig today, got the 2/0 offset hooks with the bullet sinker and the plastic worms. Its a neat little set up but it snagged more weeds than I thought it was going to, thought it would be a little more weedless. I actually cast it into the flooded timber as we were drifting by and was impressed by how smoothly it worked over fallen trees and branches.
[signature]

personally I wouldn't be hitting my cranks off of logs on purpose, almost lost one like that today, that can be an expensive habit.

What is getting weeded on your t-rig? the weight or the hook? if its the hook skin it in the worm, that is pierce the outside of the work with the hook just enough so that its flush.

Personally in an area like that Id go weightless t-rig or c-rigged.

Just my thoughts.
[signature]

The hook was fine it was actually the sinker that was snagging the weeds most of the time, even though it was a bullet style sinker. I was surprised because I thought it would go through pretty easily.

Another question I have is how the hell are you supposed to hook the fish with T-rigged worm? It seems like the hook point being embedded in the plastic like that would require you to do a crazy powerful hookset just to get the hook out of the plastic and into the fishes mouth. I was hoping I could get some solid strikes on it so I could experiment but got nothing more than a couple tugs.

As for the crankbait thing, I'm open to any other suggestions for fishing that submerged timber. I'll give the crankbait thing a try but it seems like it would be challenging to aim the lure right at the trees like that unless the conditions were very calm. Keep in mind I don't have years of experience casting here .

Also any thoughts on why my lure was getting tangled so much? I got sick of seeing my lure spinning in circles on the reel in rather than being down deep shakin all over the place.
[signature]

Sorry steveH I should have been more specific. As you crank in your squire billed crank you try to have it hit the tree. Don't take aim and throw it at the tree. The sudden change and noise in the crank as it hits seems to get a reaction strike. Granted if there are alot of roots or branches in the area, then go weedless worm or jig. I use a clip for my hard baits. Faster and it doesn't seem to hurt the action.
[url "http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/links/link.jsp?id=0011850113061a&type=product&cmCat=SEARCH_all&returnPage=search-results1.jsp&Ntk=Products&QueryText=snaps&sort=all&_D%3AhasJS=+&N=0&Nty=1&hasJS=true&_DARGS=%2Fcabelas%2Fen%2Fcommon%2Fsearch%2Fsearch-box.jsp.form23&_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1"][/url][/url]
[signature]

dont forget he isnt all that experienced.

If I were you id pick up a nice white/chartreuse spinner, double bladed and toss tha in. a nice slow retrieve.
[signature]