Golden Lure

[gone_phishin]

Hi all. I fished BP on the weekend and watched, and tried matching troll speeds, and using same lures (Jackalls, Smak spinners) and could still only come up with 11 fish for the boat, when others like Herby got 105 fish. I know I'm only new (first Bass on the weekend ) but when you're sittin there at presentations and your whole family only get a 50th of the winning team total, you wonder is there some magic voodoo type stuff to this fishing!! Or do I just keep practising? Oh well I won a lovely brazier for my hard luck story

[BlitzBaga]

G'Day Mate

I don't really think that you can expect to catch your first bass on the weekend and expect to be up there with the best. I have been fishing with lures for bass for about 20yrs and I usually catch a fairly credible amount of fish, sometimes you can be lucky to find where the bigger fish are schooling and slay them, and if you are lucky enough to be fishing a comp at the time, your laughing. Keep practicing and keep learning, there are always new techniques that seem to work better than the last.

Cheers
Murray

[Smithy]

Were you using 4 lb braid, leader around a rod length of 10-14 lb mono or flourocarbon, were you running you lures about 1/2-2 cast lengths back? Subtle differences can make a world of difference. Also once you found fish on the sounder did you stick with them or did you tour all over the dam? Do you run your sounder with the little fish symbols or do you use arches?

Nice to meet you and more time on the water will hone your skills.

[gone_phishin]

Hi Smithy!

I did do all the first things you talked about down to the Fluoro, but I didn't stop when I got fish on the sounder, just kept motoring thinking that there were so many fish there they had to come and get whatever was offered! Should I have stopped and done some casting? I use the little fish symbols, but the sounder, like me, is only new at this game! Should I be using the arches?

Any help will be greatly appreciated and it was good to meet you too, and I will be back next year for sure. Is it true that there were 2200 fish caught and released for the weekend? What a total it would be if everyone had counted there undersize fish!!

What a great couple of days!!

[Herby13]

Good on you gone_phishing congrat's on your first bass [smiley=thumbsup.gif]. I just used as Rob said 4lb fireline with a 2 rod length 6lb leader trolling Jackall's around out infront of the boat ramp, there was bulk fish on the sounder so i just worked out a loop aqnd trolled that the whole wknd, venturing once up to bass point with no success. I dont know what the Jackall was called but it was clear with like purple and green tinge to it.

Your right about it being a top wknd but, it was great. Cya Next year.

Thomas [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

[quinn]

Hey never use the little fish symbols on the sounder, any floating objects in the water gets displayed as a fish on the sounder. You were probably fishing for floating weed and sticks for most of the weekend. Put it to its raw mode with arches. Do a search on this forum for sounder/fish finders. Then go to your manufacturers site and to the support section to see if they have any tutorials. If not go to eagles fish finder site and go through the tutorial on there, it will explain all the basics. Basically rule of thumb is to use your own sensitivity, better to choose your own zoom range, keep in raw mode, then you just have to learn how to interpret it.

[gone_phishin]

Hey Herby, was that a soft or hard Jackall and does the lighter line mean more strikes are transformed into catches? Someone told me that the lighter the line the more the fish will hang onto the lure. True? I did get a lot of hits but they just didn't want to hit hard. I read somewhere in one of these forums that the length of the leader is important as the fish won't strike if the braid is to close or you put the lure directly onto braid. True? After reading this I realised that my leader was getting shorter and shorter all weekend as I tried different lures. In the end I think it was about 40 cm long. Sorry about all the questions but I think I'm really hooked!!

[gone_phishin]

G'day Quinn. I'm off to look at the Eagle site now, and have a read of my manual again but I don't think it talked to much about sensitivity. I can see your point though. I don't know about chasing sticks and weed all weekend, but I was definately chasing my tail!!

[Herby13]

Hey Herby, was that a soft or hard Jackall and does the lighter line mean more strikes are transformed into catches? Someone told me that the lighter the line the more the fish will hang onto the lure. True? I did get a lot of hits but they just didn't want to hit hard. I read somewhere in one of these forums that the length of the leader is important as the fish won't strike if the braid is to close or you put the lure directly onto braid. True? After reading this I realised that my leader was getting shorter and shorter all weekend as I tried different lures. In the end I think it was about 40 cm long. Sorry about all the questions but I think I'm really hooked!!


Gone_phishin, That was a hard jackall. I wouldn't have a clue about the lighter the line meaning more fish, all i can say was that i was using my overhead trolling with 6kg braid on it and wasn't getting any till i switched to the lighter line , and every fish i got hit hard and ran well. Yeah the leader is important, i use 2 rod lengths as then you can tie on and off till your heart is content as any little abrasion to the line i cut off, i wasn't about to through away 30 bucks. My mate a few years back when we were out didn't tie a leader on his line and while we were whacking fish he was getting absolutely nothing so i say the fish can either see it or something. What size braid/fireline and leader were you using?

When im trolling lures i just use a BLACK MAGIC snap swivel as it saves alot of time tying knots but then i know of other's who only swear by tying it on as the swivel may take away from the lures action.

Hope to of been of some help.

Thomas [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

[gone_phishin]

I was using 4kg Fireline onto 9kg Fluoro leader but there wasn't much of that left by the end. Thinking back though I did get less strikes as the weekend progressed so that should tell me something . I think I'll try a snap swivel for a while to at least see if I can save some time for fishing rather than tying knots half the time! Thanks for your help, this is really great.

Geoff

[Herby13]

Thanks Geoff, happy fishing!

Thomas [smiley=thumbsup.gif]