Fishing the Rodent (and Bitsy Jig)

We did an awful lot of worm tossing last year, mixing up colors, sizes, and even shapes. We tossed a tube or two (no luck) and a rubber craw (couple smallies). This same style is often used by the pros but with other lures. I'm watching Karl Kalonka flipping for bass in New England lakes and he was pushing two in particular. The first was a Strike King Rodent and the second was the Bitsy Bug Jig with what looked like a frog head with two dangley legs hanging off it. I realize he's sponsored by Strike King and probably caught the 4 or 5 lunkers he showed over several days but the fishing style seems similar and this looks like a nice bridge from same style to different baits.

With both he was hunting out docks and structures and crawling them back to the boat. He was actually lifting them up off the ground a bit more aggressively than I work a worm back with. The rodent he was fishing with a screw top hook (4s, 5s, 6s) and had a small bullet sinker on the front.

He offered a pretty good tip:
When approaching structure don't just cast at it blindly. Find the shadow edge and put your first shot on it. Emphasis on making the most of your first shot and positioning for the shade, not just the structure.

Will put em on the list and report back.

2009 Gallery - The Before Pictures

The One to Beat
My top fish of 2009
3lbs. 15 oz
Small Pond in MA

Caught late in the season on the Game Changer. All season I said my goal was 4+ and this is my luck - 1 ounce short. This is one of probably 10 or so 2+ pounders that were pulled on either the Game Changer or Worm. And of course, it was caught on the only thing I can catch half decent fish on - a 6" green yamasenko. Tommy, the guy who donated the worm ended up catching a 4lbs 2oz pig on the last day of the season in the Worm on Bow Lake.

Below that are a few more of 2009's memories. Of course all of these will seem like baitfish after 2010.

Current Bass Fishing Gear - Start of 2010 Season

Here's the current layout. I expect this will change some as I become a pro over the course of this season.

Boats: 'The Worm' - 14' 1969 pale green fiberglass Lucraft with an early 80's 30 h.p. Evinrude. Donated by a friend whose wife wanted it out of the yard after it was left behind by a client that moved from New England back to whatever sunny part of the world he came from. This boat once spent summers fishing off the shores of Virginia and still has the Virginia Dept of Game & Fishing sticker to prove it. Took me a few weekends to replace the steering, lights, electric, and install a couple seats to old posts. The motor wouldn't turn over and I found a salt of the earth small engine mechanic in New Hampshire willing to take it apart and clean it up for $50. Yet another reason I love New Hampshire. I also had to install a couple steel plates in the transom because the fiberglass was broken and rotting around where the engine mounts. She's sporting a an Eagle fishfinder that I have no idea what to do with beyond making sure I'm not about to run around. I also found a used electric Evinrude trolling motor with foot pedal for $150. She has a trailer but it needs lights so it's pretty much used to commute to and from the house driveway to Bow Lake. She's definitely the ugliest boat on the water and I couldn't be prouder.

Boat #2: 'The Game Changer" - a 10' Pelican pontoon-style plastic pond boat with an electric trolling motor. Named the Game Changer because it opened the door to fishing locally on weekends. An excellent two man pond hopper that we carry into and out of local ponds.

Rod / Reel: I don't own a rod / reel combo that cost over $50 because frankly I can't tell the difference. Most are probably $30 set ups. I used miles to buy a fancy Abu Garcia bait caster that probably retailed for $80 and I couldn't cast the damn thing for the life of me. I'd file this in the "because I saw the pros do it" category of foolish fishing expenditures. Not the first, won't be the last. I usually use a light weight 6' rod but I have a smaller super light weight Ugli stick that I keep on board when it looks like making a fight of 6" perch and smallies is the best we'll do.

Line: I use mostly 10lb test. I stopped using the cheap stuff because I actually did notice it spooled up my bale more frequently and it got brittle quicker. I like the light green Berkley line or whatever that one is with the fancy black widow spider graphic.

Bait: I've got swim baits, crank baits, rubber everything. It all fills up space in my tackle box since the only thing I can seem to get working is 3", 5", 6" yamamoto senkos (yamasenkos). Green seems to do the trick. Pumpkin seed or watermelon. At the end of last season I stumbled into the 5" Yamamoto prosenkos with the tapered tail that seemed to produce well. The prosenks are tough to find in stores. I found a few packs at Dicks but it was hit or miss. The only two stores I'd shop at for Yamamotos are Walmarts and Dicks. They're between $5 and $7 a pack. For some reason I've seen 8 packs of senkos in some stores and 5 packs in others. Not sure why. If I find cheaper online options I'll post them.

Planned Upgrades for 2010:
This year I intend to replace the Worm's cheap Walmart-bought $40 vinyl / aluminum bracket fishing seats with seats with the hard plastic seats (they're padded with some kind of vinyl but they are plastic frames). The aluminum bends turning the seat into a kind of sloppy lounge chair. I'm also planning to pick up a Humminbird wrist watch fish finder. We do a lot of pond fishing in the Game Changer and I'm thinking this will be a nice addition. You actually cast it out and look at your watch as you reel in over holes. Seems like a cool thing to own anyway but I'll let you know if I get ripped off.

Fishing with Dummies...The Idea

I grew up fishing Boston Harbor for stripers and blues. Two years ago family bought a house on a lake in southern New Hampshire and a friend donated a pale green 14' 1969 fiberglass Lucraft that we named "The Worm." Since then I've learned that the only thing fishing for striped bass has in common with fishing for large mouth is the word bass.

So now I'm pretty much starting from scratch. In the last two years I've blindly followed the lead of Charlie Moore and anyone in a fancy bass boat that let me get close enough to ask a couple questions. I've watched hours of youtube clips and read a few books so I know what should work. Despite this, I head out most days on one of a few ponds in Mass and lakes in NH and if I'm lucky I take a couple smallies and on a great day a large mouth. So how does one go from the type of fishing any jerk with a skiff and a couple rubber worms can do to bagging a couple pigs per outing? It's easy enough to read that when they're not hitting shallow one should throw together a Carolina rig and try deeper. The books are all written for those states where the real bass fishing happens like Alabama or some other place where the water's likely to be 78 degrees year round. And I'd love to have a few beers with Charlie Moore but why the hell won't he spend a few more minutes telling me what he's fishing and why? In how many feet of water should one expect a Carolina rig to work? Should there be a worm or a craw on it? What color? Which of the 1,000+ combinations of color, size, and brand should I choose? How slow should I crank? Should I fish it down a hill or up it? Why the hell can't I get a bait caster to work properly? Is live bait cheating? What the f am I doing wrong?

Starting this summer I'm going to take a proper run at this. I'm going to move from tying on a rubber worm and casting it at the shore line regardless of temp or season to having a solid strategy. I'm going to weed through the advice of a thousand different bait sellers, blogs, and tv shows telling me a thousand different ways to catch fish by collecting the data. This blog will store the raw data and results of my experiments. At the least, I'll have a convenient place to log my attempts with mobile posts coming from the lakes. Maybe by using the blog a few comments from others will help me and a person or two move up the learning curve. The goal - go from catching no fish in the ugliest boat on the water to being a fish killer in the ugliest boat on the water.

Fishing with dummies begins.