Well ran to the lake on my new 14 foot jon boat for the 3rd time this week!! Been hammering the cats between the Saratoga park marina and the private nautica marina, this morning I left about 6am and headed to the Jordan river pump house channel, caught one and it started white capping and headed back. Waves were so big it actually cracked a weld and I was taking on water oh no!!! Made it back to the ramp and got out, decided to throw off the docks for a minute before the rain. I've been using a 2" peg float santee cooper rig style with a 8/0 team catfish circle hook and perch meat, and it hadn't let me down!! Got a good one by the new pump house in the marina , 11am and home on the couch!
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Sorry about the boat, that sucks. Is it something that can be fixed easily? I’m not well versed on how they do it or how easy it is that’s why I ask. To me it seems hard and I feel very sorry.
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Luckily my buddy is a welder and can do aluminum so hes gonna fix it back up for me Wednesday and I'll be down at yuba all this coming weekend on it! Without him I'm sure itd be a pretty penny to fix it!!
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Congrats on the fish from off the docks. There are four things that I like about that photo.
1. The tail is blurred to show that it is thrashing about.
2. The Santee-Cooper rig so that those who don't know can see how it is set up.
3. Your use of big bait and how, if it's done right, it comes up the line.
4. Your use of a big hook and how it's perfectly set in the corner of the mouth; some people don't know that a circle hook that big is good.
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The older I get the more I would rather be considered a good man than a good fisherman.
I love big baits and big hooks! 6/0 & 8/0 are about all I use anymore they really cut down on the bullhead ratio! The only thing about the rig I would say is I think I'll run the peg on the hook side of the float maybe itll float more flat then it does with the peg on the sinker/swivel side, I also tie snell knots now and they make a big difference when running the circle hooks.
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Lived near Santee Cooper for a couple years on an assignment- got to love those rigs on blue cats
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That’s awesome I’m happy for you that you can get some help with it and it’s not going to cost a kidney to do it. It’s good to have friends.
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"I've been using a 2" peg float santee cooper rig style with a 8/0 team catfish circle hook "
It looks like you and I raided the same racks at Cabela's. I just shared 7/0 Gamakatsu and 8/0 Team Catfish hooks with Pisco; he's making up a mooching rig (double hook) for the really big pieces of white bass. I know he doesn't write much but he might let us know how it works for him [
]. Boy, those Team Catfish hooks make the Gamakatsus look small and thin by comparison. I think I could tow my pickup with one of those big 8/0s. I did pass on the 12/0s, though. Now maybe if I go somewhere for blues ...
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The older I get the more I would rather be considered a good man than a good fisherman.
I've got some 12/0 I grind the barbs off and use them for sturgeon they work perfect! I use to love the whisker sticker hooks but they're cheap metal and rust so I switched to gamagatsu and they worked great but the team catfish are about all i buy anymore. Even on the 6/0 I've got walleye and whitebass somehow on them, I do have a pack of the super j hooks I might try but you get lazy using circle hooks and its hard to get back into actually setting the hook once you stop
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Heres a better picture of the santee rig, 20lb red braid, sinker slider, bead, large snap swivel, 30lb mono leader with a double over hand knot, about 12" long, 2" peg float, 8/0 smelled circle hook bait of your choice I prefer perch as it's very easy to get and store in the freezer whole.
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That is a nice clear picture of the rig. Where do you get your sinker sliders? What weight sinkers do you use?
I had a bunch of little perch for bait but lost them all due to a freezer failure. My brother has a bunch still, though. We haven't had a lot of success with them. How do you fish them?
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The older I get the more I would rather be considered a good man than a good fisherman.
I had a guy order 1 and 1.5oz molds for river sinkers and I buy them from him here in utah, they're about 1 buck for 2 so pretty affordable, I like 1 oz when I can but if its windy the 1.5 oz or 2oz is plenty, I like to hook my bait through the spine and at a angle so it dosent come off if you needsinkers pm me I have about 80 from my last order still and I have 10oz pyramids for sturgeon fishing as well.
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I've been using santee cooper rig forever, I just now found out it has a name.
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Let me know if you need more. You can PM me. And we might get a group order together. I'm glad Cabela's is there but their prices can be a little high and their selection not huge. I would like to get some slotted cigar floats, too.
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The older I get the more I would rather be considered a good man than a good fisherman.
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Ain't nothin' new under the sun is there? It's just fun for me to learn something new to me as long as I can get it to work right.
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The older I get the more I would rather be considered a good man than a good fisherman.
