In my experience, bluegill can be caught on just about anything including bare hooks and even a few times with my hands. Catfish, they like smelly stuff. Chicken liver works great too, or a mass of worms. I never liked using treble hooks for catfish like some people do though. One tip for using chicken liver, since liver breaks easily and doesn't stay on the hook, is to use cut up pantyhose. Cut out a square, wrap the liver up, and then run your hook through it. For largemouth, I use soft plastic too, but the Bass Pro Shops branded stuff. Had more success with their Stik-O jerkbait rigged wacky, but if you want to spend the extra cash a lot of people love the Senko. I've stuck mostly with jigs with big tails for smallmouth and walleyes.
Live bait works pretty well and IMO doesn't require as much technique. Can cost a bit more per outing depending on what you get. Big shiners and crayfish work well. Worms are cheap and work too, but a lot of people tend to hook the worm too much until it looks like a ball which doesn't work as well as hooking it once or twice. You want the worm to wriggle.
Anyways, to add onto some basic tips given by scotty: - keep hook sizes as small as possible - don't constantly change out your tackle if it isn't working - for catfish, try chumming the water with bread or corn before fishing
Omaha Red Sox wrote:It's a relatively small lake, but it's very quiet, not as well known (not on Google Maps), and loaded with fish (even though we didn't catch anything ).
Thanks for all the tips scott. We broke a few of those rules yesterday. The insect repellant one and the kid was not just throwing rocks (though we made him stop), but actually in the water some of the time. Yeah, we were destined to go home empty handed.
Small lake.. ok. Find a spot of shore with a nice grassy area to sit down. No point standing the whole time Look for an area of the lake that has some sort of obstruction or natural structure in it - be it a tree fallen into the water (great for crappie), a shallow ledge (protects bluegills from larger predators), aquatic plants growing, stream or drainage pipe inlets (create deep channels that draw in all sorts of stuff). Essentially, casting out into the wide open water is a dead zone, since there aren't many pelagic fish in ponds or lakes. (Altho if you put a piece of chicken liver on a hook and cast it out, a catfish will find it.)
Smaller fish will huddle around the structure/obstructions for protection. And, since bigger fish like to eat them, look for them in the same area but a bit further out in deeper water. For example, the main drainage inlet for my neighborhood goes into the retention pond in the NE corner. There's tons of bluegill all around the shallow areas on either side of the chasm the water flow makes, and I cast into the deeper water just out from there to look for the largemouth bass.
And if Jr. wants to jump in the water, that's all good, just don't be fishing in the same spot. The point of going to the lake is to have fun, after all
beanoX3 wrote: Worms are cheap and work too, but a lot of people tend to hook the worm too much until it looks like a ball which doesn't work as well as hooking it once or twice. You want the worm to wriggle.
hahahha, I was out fishing a couple years ago, there's another guy there with his two kids, and he comes over to ask me what he's doing wrong... he'd taken an artificial worm and hooked it about 6 times into a great big rubber ball on the hook.
And when it comes to live worms, you're already killing them, so break them in half and pierce them once or twice.... doubles your bait that way.
beanoX3 wrote:Worms are cheap and work too, but a lot of people tend to hook the worm too much until it looks like a ball which doesn't work as well as hooking it once or twice. You want the worm to wriggle.
Caught this 37 in. Striper (Rockfish) trolling back in December. I was freezing.
I really like freshwater bass fishing though, I would try a lure called the Tiny Torpedo, ORS. They may be a little on the expensive side, but they're so fun to fish because its a topwater lure with a lot of noise so you get to watch the fish come up and hit it with some force. Great fun.
1. fishing on lakes and rivers growing up in WV. we realy didn'ty catch much except a BUZZ most of the time.
2. Then I moved to TX after finishing college and when Deep Sea fishing. That is flat out awesome. If you ever get the chance do it. It is worth every penny. The last trip cost 4 of us 1500 bucks and we as a group caught a swordfish that took hours to land. We all were exausted when we got in. Sold the fish for 800 bucks to a fishery.
You could think of government workers like teenagers. You pay them an allowance, but do you get any work out them? They eat the food, put their feet on the furniture and complain loudly whenever they are unhappy.
houstonherdfan wrote:2. Then I moved to TX after finishing college and when Deep Sea fishing. That is flat out awesome. If you ever get the chance do it. It is worth every penny. The last trip cost 4 of us 1500 bucks and we as a group caught a swordfish that took hours to land. We all were exausted when we got in. Sold the fish for 800 bucks to a fishery.
Cafe Home
Fantasy Baseball
Fantasy Basketball
Fantasy Hockey
by beanoX3 » Thu Aug 14, 2008 1:28 pm 
). 
Look for an area of the lake that has some sort of obstruction or natural structure in it - be it a tree fallen into the water (great for crappie), a shallow ledge (protects bluegills from larger predators), aquatic plants growing, stream or drainage pipe inlets (create deep channels that draw in all sorts of stuff). Essentially, casting out into the wide open water is a dead zone, since there aren't many pelagic fish in ponds or lakes. (Altho if you put a piece of chicken liver on a hook and cast it out, a catfish will find it.)
