An Interesting Yard Sale Find

I picked up this old fiberglass fly rod at a yard sale.  The guy was asking $15.00 but I haggled him down to $10.00.  It is a Martin Reel Company 9 foot 9 weight, 2 piece rod. 

I think the owner did some rebuilding by moving up the reel seat  on the blank and adding a grip below it to make a switch rod or Spey style rod.  But it's only 9 foot.  That is an unusual length for a switch or a Spey.

I cannot find any information on this model number online.  It isn't a wonderfully built rod, but it should be worth the money.



I took it out on the Menomonee river last Friday with my 4/5 weight reel just to play with it. This rod is heavy!  My arm was tired just from carrying it down to the river.  I caught a couple bluegill on nymphs.  My little girl kissed one of them.  It was pretty cute.



#glassisnotdead



#yearofthebluegill



I am excited to try this rod out with some rough fish, or during the salmon run.  Maybe I can run across a cheap old 9 weight reel to pair it with.  that would be perfect.

Tying Your Own Amphipoda; or, I Remember When Scuds Were Soviet Produced Missiles Fired From Iraq Into Israel

Scuds always remind me of GWAR and the first Gulf War.  I didn't know that there were tiny shrimp-like creatures called scuds until I started fly fishing.  If you click here, you'll see that there are many meanings for the word scud.  Anyway, I filmed an instructional video on how to tie a simple, highly effective scud that will work for trout, bass, and panfish.

You can visit an earlier post for a little more instruction if you're new to fly tying.  Sorry if it's a little shaky, this is what I'm working with.

In the video, I tied a tan scud.  Scuds tend to take on the color of their environment though, so if you're fishing in a silty stream, grey may be a better representation of what the fish are eating.  If you're fishing along a weedline, cast an olive colored scud.  Those are the three colors I tie, but I've seen pink scuds for sale in shops.

The scud from the video, smaller than
the words "atomic field-circuits."

When fishing in streams with a scud, I let it dead drift through pools, riffles or along cover, sometimes I give little twitches.

I was fishing in Lake Michigan along the rocks near Discovery World early one late spring morning and I caught so many little trout I couldn't believe it!  They must have been hatchery trout that were just stocked, but it sure was fun!  I would cast almost parallel to the rocks, and strip the scud back.

I fish the same way in the urban ponds that are stocked, cast and strip back. 

Here are a few fish I've caught on scuds,  they're nothing too exciting though.

Although they are very abundant, widespread and diverse,^[2] amphipods do not feature strongly in the public imagination. Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing wrote in 1899:^[3]

No panegyrist of the Amphipoda has yet been able to evoke anything like popular enthusiasm in their favour. To the generality of observers they are only not repelled because the glance which falls upon them is unarrested, ignores them, is unconscious of their presence. (Source:Wikipedia)

I think Tom needs to hang out with some anglers.

Girls Love A Guitar Player

My baby girl is ten months old today!  She loves fishing with daddy, and she loves playing music.  This is our first band rehearsal from Sunday night, our band is called Woolly Goat.

I play guitar, daddy.
You play drums.

I show you

This is how you play

I'm a good guitar player

I wonder how long before she catches her first bluegill.

On another note, I made a trip to The Fly Fishers and talked rods.  I made my choice as soon as I get the money.

Leveling Up

The first thing I like to do when my family moves into a new area is find the closest body of water and come up with a list of achievements to "unlock" on said body of water; like playing video games.  Looking for special "ITEMS" to add to your "Inventory" is also fun.  There are two bodies of water within walking distance of our current apartment, the Menomonee River, and the Washington Park Pond.  My achievements to unlock and ITEM pickups are listed below, I'll list the conditions that need to be met to unlock these achievements as I complete them.

Menomonee River

Achievements

1. (*) Blue Heron (locate three areas likely to hold fish)
2. (*) Eagle Eye (visually locate fish)
3. (*) Bronze Hook (catch a fish)
4. (*) Silver Hook (catch a game fish)
5. (*) Gold Hook (Catch a game fish over the minimum length requirement [Achievement unlocked 10-1-2012]) 
6. (*) Cleanup Crew (catch a rough fish)
7. (*) LATFH (catch a fish on the fly)
8. (*) Elitist (Catch a fish on a dry fly [Achievement unlocked 09-02-13])
9. (*) Baby Bear (Catch a member of the family: Salmonidae [Achievement unlocked 10-1-2012])
10. (*) Mama Bear (Catch a member of the family: Salmonidae that measures over 30" [Achievement unlocked 10-3-2012])
11. ( ) Papa Bear
12. ( ) Hungry Bear

ITEM Pickups

1. FOSSIL FRAGMENT
2. FOSSILIZED CORAL
3. DISK GOLF DRIVER
4. GOLF BALLS

The stretch of the Menomonee River that I live by is very urban, right on the edge of the Menomonee Valley.  People might ask, "Why are you gonna fish in there?"  Because it's there!  It apparently has decent salmon and steelhead runs, and in the past it was stocked with rainbow trout, bass, and pike.  It's too tempting not to fish, and it's a fun place to hang out.

Very urban.

The Menomonee is kind of tucked away and
out of view to most.

My brother Shane throws a golf ball.

After a little rain, it muddies right up.

Looks like dirty dishwater.

As you go upstream, it becomes more natural looking.

So pretty in this stretch.

It doesn't seem to take long to clear up after the rain.

Beautiful remnants of an old bridge

Nice undercut bank.

I found these beautiful flowers.

So pretty, I couldn't bear to pick
one for my wife and daughter.

Some kind of shiner.

Bluegill on a beadhead scud.

FOSSIL FRAGMENT.

FOSSILIZED CORAL.

Washington Park Pond

Achievements

1. ( ) Garden Hackle
2. ( ) The Conqueror Worm
3. ( ) It's Super Effective!
4. ( ) For Beginners 
5. ( ) Pond Scum
6. ( ) Matador
7. ( ) Pot O' Gold
8. ( ) Pond Lord

Washington Park Pond is stocked with some gamefish and catchable trout.  The urban ponds have some different regulations, they're posted around the pond on big yellow signs.  I've never fished it, but I have noticed a lot of surface action in the evening when walking around the pond.  It gets pretty crowded at certain times, but now that kids are back in school, a mid-week fishing stroll might be in order.  When I finally do get a chance to fish the pond I'll post some pictures.

Coming up with lists of achievements is a fun way to fish.  It gives you a goal, something you can check your progress against.  Each time you unlock an achievement, you'll level up for that body of water!  I know it's super nerdy, but I'm a pretty nerdy guy.  My wife calls it "Karping," like Larping-- get it?

Keep Calm And Carry Wildeye Swim Baits

I’m positive that you will enhance your fishing experience once you’ve gotten the hang of fishing with curly tail grubs.  When you fish with live bait, the bait does the fishing, but when you fish artificials, you do the do the fishing by making the lure resemble something they want to eat; you have to know how the fish think.  The next fishing lure every angler needs in their tackle box uses the slogan, “Think Like A Fish,” it’s the Storm Wildeye Swimbait.  They are soft plastic bodies molded around an internal weight.  There are some pros and cons to these lures, let’s just get the cons out of the way and then we will be free to discuss how truly awesome these things are.

My current Wildeye collection.  Note the sunfish
on the right with the missing tail.

Most Wildeye Swimbaits have a single dorsal (back) hook and a ventral (belly) treble hook.  The treble hook tends to get snagged a lot.  When fishing in areas with a lot of snags, you can take the treble hook off; it’s only attached with a split ring.  The lure isn’t quite as effective without the treble hook, but it’s better to lose fish than to lose lures.  Also, a big fish tends to wreck these lures in a fight.  The soft portion may be torn from the solid center, the tail may be bitten off, or the lead weight may be knocked loose from the dorsal hook.  Honestly, any fish you can catch that’s big enough to wreck a lure is something to be proud of.  Release the fish, and keep the lure as a trophy.  And the final issue has to do with quality control.  Sometimes you will get a lure that won’t swim straight, or the tail won’t move during the retrieval.  I’m not sure if it’s the packaging or the production.

Ventral hook removed.

Despite these setbacks, Wildeyes are amazing lures!  They are usually sold in packs of three, and usually cost around $5.00.  They are shaped and painted in many different body styles to resemble a wide variety of small fish that big fish eat, so these things attract just about any kind of fish that may occasionally eat smaller fish, and they are pretty easy to use, just cast out and reel in.  The tail paddles on the retrieve making it look like a swimming bait fish, hence the name swimbait.  You don’t have to work too hard to impart action into the lure, since the tail does it for you.  The final reason you should have Wildeye Swimbaits in your tackle box is because of the size of the fish they catch.  I am consistently shocked by the monsterous fish caught on these!  The smallest fish caught with these was a 10” musky while bass fishing; to this day, it was the only musky i’ve ever caught.  Here’s my list of fish caught on Wildeye Swimbaits.

• carp
• chinook salmon
• freshwater drum (sheephead)
• largemouth bass
• muskellunge
• northern pike
• rock bass
• smallmouth bass
• splake (brook trout X lake trout hybrid)

Suspending Wildeye
Swim Shad.

In streams for smallmouth bass, I like to use a suspending Swim Shad much like I’d use a Mister Twister.  Cast upstream ahead of pools, or along cover likely to hold fish.  The suspending Swim Shad sinks ever so slowly as the current carries it through the pool and into the mouths of hungry fish.  When I “Think Like A Fish,” I imagine the bass think it’s a dazed minnow, and they can’t pass it up!

In the Great Lakes region, when the salmon are running up the streams in late summer, I like to cast a weighted walleye Wildeye (walleye Wildeye, walleye Wildeye, walleye Wildeye) into deep holes just before dusk.  The eyes of the walleye pattern glow in the dark, and this drives the salmon crazy, and they will strike out of anger!  A lot of times there will be deep holes under overpasses that hold big chinook.  If you’re ever driving over a bridge in the fall and notice cars parked all along it, chances are pretty good that the salmon are running.

West Michigan's White River under the countyline bridge.

White River from the bridge.

This beautiful chinook took a Wildeye walleye.

My cute little wife talks to seagulls
along the inner Muskegon Channel pier.

Another place I love Wildeye Swimbaits is deep channels and harbors.  Use a sunfish pattern; you can cast them along the rocks of the breakwater and reel them back in to try to lure out largemouth or pike.  You’ll want to retrieve right away when the lure hits the water to avoid getting hung up on rocks and driftwood.  Fishing along the rocks is fun and effective, but what I usually do in the channels and harbors is cast out as far as I can and let it sink to the bottom.  Reel back just fast enough to make the tail move, give some little rod tip twitches, and HOLD ON!  You’ll never know what you’re going to catch, but you’ll definitely know when a fish is on.  I caught so many big sheephead out of the Muskegon Lake Channel on these.  I know sheephead are not the most sought after fish, even considered “rough fish” (more on rough fish in a later update) but they are among the strongest fish I have ever caught!  The long casting technique was how I was fishing when I caught a 24” splake. Such a beautiful fish, and I didn’t have a camera with me.

In Great Lakes marinas, like Milwaukee’s McKinley Marina there are usually some nice fish, like bass, brown trout, carp, pike, walleye, and in the fall, salmon, but lots of snags.  If you get hung up, make a mental note of it.  You don’t want to lose your lure on a picnic table that someone used for ice fishing that didn’t get removed before the thaw, but it probably provides cover for a really nice bass, be careful!  Fish love the shade provided by docks, and the shoreline has some nice rocks for cover.  “Think Like A Fish” and have fun, I bet you can figure it out!

even carp will strike these! notice the sunfish
Wildeye in his mouth.

same fish, Mckinley Marina, 2010

There is one more lure that everyone needs in their tackle box that I will talk about in my next post.  It’s sort of a last resort, when you don’t know what the fish will strike, you’ll be glad to have this Jedi Master of a lure in your arsenal.  Hope the suspense doesn’t kill you!

Keeping it Real With Artificials

Have you ever seen the film A River Runs Through It?  If you have, you must surely remember how the main characters looked down on bait fishing.  Don't worry, most people won't look down on you.  If you're happy catching your limit of bluegill on worms, then more power to ya!

Live bait can be extremely effective, and if you are just desperate to catch something, a worm on a hook under a Poké Ball float is the way to go.  But even the most hardened bait fisherman is bound to have some artificials in his tackle box.

Seriously?!?

There are many reasons to fish with artificial lures, they can be used to target specific species of fish, generally attract larger fish, and require you to be more involved because you need to make the lure appear to be alive and edible.  There are some places, usually trout streams, where fishing with live bait is actually illegal.

Lures come in so many forms that you can lose your head if you don’t know what you’re looking for.  The prices can range from under a dollar to upwards of ten or even twenty dollars!  However, there are some artificial lures that are super effective for many kinds of fish that are very reasonably priced.

For my next few posts I will discuss the three affordable lures that no fisherman should be without.  I will also share some techniques that I find particularly successful in specific situations.  

Hook, Line and Sinker

As I mentioned before, just because you got a fishing rod, you are not quite ready to start reeling in the lunkers.    The easiest way to start is with live bait.  It requires the least gear, and you can catch a wide variety of fish, but you’re gonna need something to tie onto the end of your new line, as well as things to make your bait float... or sink.  

Let’s talk about line.  The line on that flea market rod might be older than you!  Ideally, your fishing line should be replaced every year.  The line starts to act a little crazy as it gets older.  It becomes much more likely to tangle, hard to cast accurately, knots won’t hold, and it becomes brittle and more likely to break.  Fishing line is usually sold with a rated breaking strength and the diameter on the package.  When choosing new line, choose the lightest line you are comfortable using.  If you plan on catching bluegill or perch or other panfish, you can probably do just fine with three pound test.  If fishing for big catfish, you might go with twenty pound test.  I personally never use anything above ten pound test.  There is a trade off. As your line gets heavier, you will have less strikes because the fish are more likely to see your line.  Heavier line is also harder to cast than light line.  There are so many different choices for line, and they are changing constantly.  There is monofilament, fluorocarbon, superbraid... maybe someday we’ll have nanotube line!  What I usually find myself buying is Yo-Zuri Hybrid, it’s a nylon monofilament and fluorocarbon hybrid.  I usually use six pound test for all around conditions.

Click to enlarge

When it comes to hooks, I usually use Eagle Claw.  I’m not much of a bait fisherman, so i’m not in the loop of what the trends are for hooks.  A lot of red hooks have been noticed hanging in branches and telephone lines, and many reviews for “circle hooks” were read in magazines.  Truthfully, probably any average hook will work as long as it’s small enough to fit in the fish’s mouth.  If the hook is too big, the fish will repeatedly suck the bait from your line without taking the hook.

Now, you need to be able to present your bait at the proper depth.  This is where sinkers and floats (or bobbers) come in.  Sinkers are usually made of lead.  Lead is cheap, heavy, soft and easily molded, and terrible for the environment.  If you are trying to be environmentally friendly, there are lead alternatives.  Tungsten, steel, or tin are used to make lead free sinkers.  Tungsten and steel are heavy, but too hard to mold, so they usually come in shapes that would be tied onto your line.  Tin is softer, but not as heavy.  Since it is softer, it is available in split shot.  Split shot is clamped onto your line easily with a pair of pliers.  (Don’t use your teeth, especially with lead split shot.)  If you are just going to fish on the bottom for big bottomfeeders, the sinkers will get you where you are going.  However, if you are fishing for sunfish, bluegill, largemouth bass, and other fish along those lines, you might need to present your bait suspended between the surface and the bottom, because that is where most fish live.  Putting a float on your line anywhere from ten inches to about six feet up from the hook, with a couple of split shot  somewhere in between (make sure your float is buoyant enough to float with your weight) will suspend your bait at a good average depth.  Floats come in all sorts of designs, but the most common kinds are either long balsa floats, or plastic spheres that look just like Poké Balls from Pokémon.  The video game nerd in me loves the Poké Ball floats.  I can draw little faces on them and make them look like Voltorb and Electrode, or just pretend i’m throwing out a Poké Ball to catch a Magikarp.  Gotta catch ‘em all!  Really I see no advantage over one type of float or another.  If anyone has an opinion over what type of float is better for any occasion over another, please share.  

My Voltorb float

My Electrode float

Finally, bait.  Probably the simplest option would be to use earthworms.  In my hometown of Muskegon, Michigan you could buy worms and many other kinds of live bait at any gas station.  In Milwaukee, live bait is much harder to find in stores, but who needs to buy live bait?  Plan ahead, save a glass jar and put some nice moist black soil in it, then wait for a soaking rain.  When the rain has cleared, get out there and start collecting your bait from the sidewalk before the birds get it all!  Alternately, if there is a wooded area near you, you can turn over stumps and logs.  You have to be quick, earthworms are pretty photophobic and will dart into the soil faster than you thought possible.  Many nightcrawlers can be found under logs; a nightcrawler is a very large earthworm used for fishing.  There are almost endless possibilities for live bait.  You can use minnows, crickets, maggots, mayflies and their larvae, leeches, frogs and so many others.  According to my dad, my great-grandfather used to fish for musky with live squirrels, i’m not sure if that’s even legal!  I have also heard of kittens being used as shark bait.  I am strongly against this.  Personally, the most advanced life form I think that should be used for bait is live fish.  Anything more advanced than fish just seems to be cruel, you have to draw a line somewhere.

Once you have acquired all of these things, you are pretty much ready to start fishing!  There is actually one more crucially important thing, you need a fishing license, well, at least in the USA you do.  Prices, as well as laws vary from state to state, so read your state’s guidebook.  If you get caught fishing without a license YOU WILL REGRET IT! 

Fishing with live bait can be a lot of fun, but there might come a time when you want to switch to artificial bait.  Artificial bait and lures will be discussed at a later point.  Now, go catch some fish!