Fishing Tips |
| Instead of using a toothpick to anchor a bullet weight to a plastic worm rig, thread a rubber sinker stopper onto your line 1st. Instead of having to pick the toothpick out when you want to change anything or retie, just slide the stopper back and forth.
When working a stickbait side-to-side, or "walking the dog", the line can sink making the lure nose-dive on the next twitch. Try using candle wax or fly floatant on the 1st 6 -7 feet of line in front of the lure to make the line float.
When you're fishing weeds with big metal-lipped plugs, the plugs diving to deep and the lip collecting weeds can be a real pain. Drill a hole in the tip of the lip and attach a split-ring for your leader. The plug won't dive as deep and the weeds should slide down the line under the lip.
You can change the running depth of a spinner bait and not alter the retrieval speed of the lure. Simply unbend, or open the gap to make the lure ride higher and close the gap to make the lure run deeper.
Crappie are notorious as papermouths. Modify your jig by opening the hook gap by about 10 degrees. That'll help sink the hook into the roof of their mouths, instead of their lips.
When fishing for panfish, hook a leech through the neck area. The skin is much tougher there and the bait is less likely to be stolen. For bobber fishing, double hooking the leech in the middle balances the leech so it will wiggle more.
To get a fish off the bottom and moving towards you, use short, quick rod pumps taking up a couple of inches at a time.
To tire a shallow water fish more quickly, hold the rod tip low and pull from one side and then switch to the other side. Alternating from side-to-side forces the fish to constantly maintain its balance and it'll tire more quickly.
To keep curly-tails from twisting the line, hook the worm so the tail is turned down with the hook point turned up. Make sure the body isn't bent or kinked.
On windy days, check the downwind side of shallow humps and points. The wind often stirs up insects and other fish food that attracts baitfish which attracts bigger fish.
When jig fishing in deep water that makes slip bobbering impractical, use packing peanuts to float the bait a foot or so above the bottom where it can be seen and appears to be barely alive. Put one in its mouth and hook it through the lips. For more floatation, make a small cut in its belly, add another and either sew, tie, or use a small rubberband to hold it closed.
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