Finesse The Bass With Soft Plastic

Finesse The Bass With Soft Plastic

The big selection of soft plastic baits at the store and kits for making plastic fishing thingies are easily purchased. Soft plastics are a favorite with anglers nationwide and some fisherman have great success with them. 

Two popular ways to fish with them is a Texas-style rig that has the hook point inside the plastic thingy so it is weed less and the other is a Carolina rig that has the hook exposed.

A Texas rig is made by threading on a bullet sinker on the line and then attaching an offset hook to the line. The plastic thingy is pushed in to the hook about 3/8 inch and the out the bottom of the plastic. The Plastic thingy is then pushed up the hook to the offset. Now the thingy is turned on the hook so the point tip can be stuck inside the body of the bait to form a snag less bate. You line the thingy setup so it has a nice flow off the line.

The bullet sinker is free on the line to slide. The sinker helps you cast it and it takes the lure to the bottom. When a fish takes the bate and moves away from where he grabbed it the line slides through the sinker with little resistance. You need to set the hook with a snap because it has to poke through the plastic body before it can pierce the fish.

With the Texas-rig, you can fish the densest cover because the hook point is inside the bait and it should not hook on things.

The Carolina rig is similar but hook point is out of the bait. The rig is made with a brass bullet sinker, then a glass bead, then a straight hook. The brass bullet and bead makes a clicking sound when it is pulled through the water to help attract the fish. The Plastic thingy is just slid onto the hook and the point is poked out the bottom of the thingy at the point where the bend of the hook is. This leaves the point out where it can pierce the fish easily. 

The slip sinker/bead can be attached a couple of feet ahead of the hook and bait with a leader to the hook. This still give the clicking sound but lets the plastic thingy sink more slowly and stay off the bottom longer. These work well where the bottom is clean and there are few snags.

Plastic baits should be retrieved slowly. A slow steady craw and or hoping them along the bottom lets them move like what they are molded to resemble. 

Moving them fast just beneath the water sometimes will work on top feeding fish, but as a general rule they are slow retrieval baits.  

With bass, they will usually hold on to the soft plastic bait for several seconds before it lets go of it. Some anglers set the hook right away; others hesitate for a second before setting the hook. A strong upward sweep of the rod is a good technique to set the hook.  

Many of the plastics come pre flavored and scented. Bass hunt using scent and flavor as well as sight and sound. Tempting them with flavor and sent should keep the plastics in their mouth longer one would think. That should give more hook setting time for slow fishermen like me. 8-

)

Plastics come in a wide color range. Pick the colors that match the type of colors of living baits in the area you are fishing in. I have found a dark bait in water that has low visibility seems to work better than a light bait. It may be that the dark spot in the water shows up better.

Fishing with plastics is often called finesse fishing because you need to bring in or retrieve the bait slowly. So when you try fishing using plastics, finesse the bass out of the water with soft plastics.

Fish with finesse!

Empty Bottles and Cans

Empty Bottles and Cans

I see empty bottles and cans floating down the river every time I go out. I saw an article in Sail Magazine that said: “Most boaters don’t want to return to the docks with empties because of DUI laws.” They do not want to have people think they are boating drunk. 

I think it is more likely they just do not care. If they took them out in something so others cannot see them then they could bring them back the same way. I cannot remember seeing Dumpster Police checking what return boaters throw away. 

Back in the olden days when I was a kid there was a bottle deposit that got people to return bottles. We kids would collect soda and beer bottles and aluminum cans and turn them in for the deposit. I and my friends collected a pickup truck load of cans one summer in about 1 month. We got someone to take us to the recycle center to turn them in and we got our photo in the newspaper for bringing in 12 bags of cans. 

I would back a bottle and can deposit fee to help solve this problem. It would also be good for kids to make money. 8-) When I said this to a kid down the street he said “It aint worth the effort!”

Check out woundednature.org.   

Dog Would Not Get Out Of Boat

Dog Would Not Get Out Of Boat

We had a nice rain last night and when I checked the boats they all needed a little attention after the rain.

The Livingston had about 15 gallons of water in it to bail out and the others just had leaves in the scuppers. I started with the Livingston, and our dog Bosco jumped on board to help. He likes going out on the boat. I bailed the boat and went on to the 3 sailboats at our dock. The dog watched from the Livingston as I did the 3 boats. When I would get off a boat he would wiggle and wag…he wanted to go out. I cleaned the other three boats and the dog stayed on the Livingston. 

I went up to the house to use the rest room, and when I came out I still found him in the Livingston. I had been going out without him when I was trying out some new fishing stuff and did not want to hook him while I was trying the stuff. He was NOT going to let me get away again without taking him. *-)

I got the gas tank for the outboard and WE took a nice ride around a few oxbows and came back to the dock. I think I am spoiling him. But he is worth it.

Old Tiller Lock Methods

Tiller Locks

If you sail by yourself there are times when you need a way of keeping the tiller in position when you have to do something else. There are high and low tech setups that will do that.

I have a tiller pilot that is great. This little motor driven pilot hooks to the tiller handle and when you turn it on it will hold the tiller where you want it and even keep you on a set heading automatically. When I am not using it I have two lines, one from each side of the boat that slip over the tiller handle and they keep the tiller in position. This is an old low tech but functional way to keep on course for a moment or two. 

In some points of sail the helm can have an uncomfortably heavy load if you have to hold it for a long time. You can easily make a set up that will almost half the load by tying a line to the side of the boat that you are pulling the tiller toward, making a loop around the end of the tiller handle and then hold the free end of the line to keep the tiller where you want it. The load is dispersed between the two lines that now go to the tiller handle. You can also tie off the free end to keep the tiller in place if you have to do something for a moment or two.

Another low tech but very workable system is a simple knotted line that goes from one side of the boat to the other. The knots fit into a hook on the tiller handle to keep the tiller in place. Extra knots give more adjustment positions.

There are a number of neat low tech ways old sailors used to keep helm in position. You do not have to have an electronic tiller pilot, but the electronic ones are a real convenience.  

It is always nice to learn how sailors of old did things. 8-) I like to pass this type of stuff on when I run across them.

Fishing Lure Types

Fishing Lure Type Names

When I look at all the fishing lures at the store I am a bit overwhelmed. They start at about a $1.00 and go up. Logic suggests that the ones that cost more must cost more because they work better. You can easily spend $50.00 on lures and come out with just a handful. One would think that now, with these lures, I should be able to go out and come home with a boat load of fish. I would starve to death if I had to live on what I catch. Me, I do it for the fun and frustration.

When you buy lures you need to buy lures for the type of fish you want to catch. (Says Me…8-)… who tries to fish) If you know how the fish feeds you can get a lure that the fish should like.

One type of Lure is called a jerkbait lure. What it is supposed to do is give an erratic, struggling look of a bait fish. I thought you were supposed to retrieve them by giving a short quick jerk, reel it in and do it again. What needs to be done to give the bait lure an injured fish look is to give a nice sweeping low pull on the pole, pause a ½ second so the bait can fall or float up and then you reel in the line a little and then repeat the pull and reel action.  Many jerkbait lures are long and thin and they are designed to dive or move to the side when you do the long sweeping pull. These lures often have treble hooks underneath and they are light so they stay up near the surface of the water. You want to fish these near but not in the water plants. They can grab water plants nicely (and dock lines, ropes, straps and clothes). 

Crankbait lures are subsurface plugs. Many have rattles inside them and many have a lip on the front of them. These are cast out and reeled in in a continuous motion. The lip and the front shape will make the lure dive and wiggle side to side when it is pulled through the water. You can get shallow or deep diving plugs, and you can also add weights to them so they will go deeper. They have treble hooks on the bottom and the lures like dock lines also. 8-) These are lures that are good for trolling. (I have never caught a troll with one of these but the way they can grab stuff off the bottom if they get down there tell me they could do a number on a troll if they got near one.)

The lures come in all sorts of colors and you should pick a color that is similar to the bait fish the big fish eat. That is supposed to help. I pick colors I like and think the fish should. The fish do not always like the colors I pick so I usually try two or three colors when I go out. Sometimes I get it right. 8-)

I like spoon lures. They are almost impossible to fish the wrong way. As someone put it: Stop and go or fast and slow they will work. I like the spoons that have a weed-less hook. You lose fewer of them. The size and shape of the spoon makes them sink or wobble in different ways. These are usually easy to cast and you can feel them wiggle when you reel them in (I like that). They are fun to reel in even if you do not catch anything. 8-)

There are all sorts of plastic thingy lures you can buy. They come in big, small, bug like, worm like, frog like, fish like, lizard like and thing like shapes. Many have no hooks with or in them so you use a hook of your choice. The baits come in all the colors you can think of and the hooks also come in different colors. The plastics can have different flavors and smells put in them when they are molded to make the more appealing to the fish (and the buyer). When you put these plastic things on a hook you can make them weed less, and that is good, the way I fish. 

You can get kits that let you mold and make your own plastic lures. You melt the plastic in a microwave and pour it in to the shapes you like to use. You can recycle old plastic lures and flavor them the way you want. You need to do this when your wife is not at home. The smell and the mess can be overwhelming and you can burn yourself big time on the melted plastic if you do not take care. If you have ever melted the end of a rope and got the hot end on your skin it is like that. The hot plastic sticks to you and will not wipe off. If you spill it (when you burn yourself) you are in for a tough clean up. You wanted to get your wife a new microwave anyway…right? I just have one of my single friends who is in to making lures do it for me. Tim will trade a six pack of beer for plastic thingies if I need them. It also keeps the smell and mess at his place. I can be lured to his place with a six pack and old lures to recycle on a rainy day. We can come up with some real unique lures after a few beers. 8-) Some of these lures will even catch fish.

I think I could buy a lot more fish at the store for what I spend trying to catch fish and what I spend on lures. But what is the fun in that. 8-)