Learning to work with the bait caster (and catching nothing in the process)

Spent 3 hours on the water on the small pond where my father caught the 5lb 14 oz whale on the last nice weekend. Lots of action with bait fish boiling all along the southern edge but couldn't get a thing going. Tried swim baits, 5" senkos, the bitsy jig with a super chunk (frog legs), bitsy jig with a prosenko hanging off the back, and a rattling crank bait. On the last cast pulled in a 9" perch which still puts me squarely in the category of getting skunked.

I did however get a chance to practice with the bait caster. After several horrible birds nests and too much time spent trying to untangle them, I think I have it figured out. Sort of. First, it's important to balance the reel for anything you're about to throw. I learned that from the youtube videos and it's spot on. You know you're balanced when you pull down on the hammer to free the spool and the lure doesn't just drop to the water. Instead it should slide down slowly once you start shaking it back and forth a bit. The guy at Dick's told me this could be achieved with the 1 to 10 magnet dial on the left side of the reel and that the small knob on the other side has to do with tension also but that I'd never need to touch it. He was wrong. That thing seems to me to be the heavy tension adjustment and the 1 - 10 magnet is more for fine tuning.

Second, it's important to not mess around with very light tackle. You need something with a little girth to pull the line off the spool.

Third, I was more successful throwing straight over the top. What I mean by that is that my throwing motion with a spinner is all over the place. I'll side arm it, skip it, throw it over the top, etc based on my target, the cover, how close I am to hooking the other person in the boat, etc. With the bait caster if you throw side arm and you apply pressure with your thumb to the spool you watch the lure begin to arc further in whatever direction your motion was headed. I'm not suggesting that you can't skip a bait caster. Just that I can't. Yet.

Finally, I found that I had to release it much sooner than the spinner to get the distance I want. Otherwise the thing nose dives and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Birds nest. To make that work I found that a real whip snap motion got me maximum distance. I was fishing a hula popper at dusk while trying to figure all this out and getting pretty good distance from it. Two fish sort of rolled at it, making me think more trout than bass, but I'm not sure trout would be in this little pond.

So, to summarize: use a lure with heft, balance the reel first, over the head throw, release high with a whip snap motion, I caught no real fish.

The Dreaded Bait Caster

Two years ago I used credit card miles to pick up an Abu Garcia bait caster. Bait casters or just 'casters' are the choice of pros. They cast longer than regular spinners and they are more accurate thanks to the ability to control the length of the cast more carefully with your thumb. They're also very difficult to use. I took it out twice and it was a nightmare. Short casts, horribly inaccurate, and nasty birds nests. I traded it to Acky for a regular spinner and went back to placing casts where I wanted them.

But this year and this blog are all about learning how to go from rookie to pro. So with that, I'm going to pick up a low end bait caster and give it another try. I've been reading up and watching videos off YouTube and I'm ready to give it another try. Will post what I learn...