My Biggest Catch So Far

It seems to me that people in the US aren't too fund of fishing for carp. Whatever the reasons for that may be, I am not one of those people. Carp fishing is more relaxing as opposed to fishing for trout and largemouth bass where you have to cast out different lures and reel them back in. When fishing for carp you just set up a bottom rig and wait for the carp to bite.

So that's what I did this past weekend and I happen to pull in a 6 lbs. carp.  So far that is the biggest fish I caught. To catch it I set up a simple bottom rig with a weight freely attached to the line so that the fish don't feel much resistance. For bait I mixed some wheat cereal and I covered the entire hook with it which was about an inch in diameter. The carp seems to like it since I did get couple of bites but I did not hook a fish right away.

But when I did it was a 6 pound carp. I almost tripped over my things when I saw my rod bend when the carp took the bait. But I got there in time to set the hook and I caught the fish. Reeling it in was exciting. Carp seem to be a strong fish and you can feel the power on the rod. But after tiring out the fish a little bit, I reeled it in and it's the biggest one I caught so far.

I will definitely be carp fishing in the future.

Good Start to the New Fishing Season

The 2012 fishing season on Kensico reservoir got off to a great start for me. Usually I’m lucky if I catch anything at all at the reservoir, but not this time. Largemouth bass were really hungry and I had the chance to hook three of them.

My buddy and I got to the reservoir at around 7am. I reached into my tackle box for the new stuff I acquired over the winter break. First up was my new spoons. I gotta say they look better then they work. I cast them out a couple of times and I observed the swimming action.  They did not have a smooth left to right bobbing action like other spoons. No, this one sometimes bobbed back and forth and sometimes just twisted.  So I didn’t use it too much and of course I didn’t catch anything with it.

The crankbait I bought also wasn’t all that good but better than the spoon. I noticed that it had a pretty convincing swimming motion. The downside was that the lure is not heavy enough to sink and it only goes down because of the lip on a retrive, so you can’t get it down more that about 6 feet.

Well after trying out the lures I went for my regular Southbend Spoon with bucktail to try to catch a lake trout of course. But instead the spoon produced a strike by a Largemouth bass.  It was a nice one. A lot bigger than the one I caught last year.  It was about 18 inches I gotta say.
We kept on fishing all day but no fish were biting, not until later on in the afternoon. I happen to catch two more Largemouth bass at that time. This time instead of the spoon I was using the Gitzit Spinners. These two fish were about the same size as I caught in the first time.

I just want to talk about the two lures I used to catch the fish. First the Southbend spoon with white bucktail. This is a great spoon. This is not the first time this lure has worked for me. It has a great swimming action and the bucktail seems to be great at attracting fish. I would recommend this spoon to everyone. I also tried out for the first time the Gitzit Spinners and they are also great. The spinner spins in the water evenly and the lure has a great look to it. If your looking for inexpensive spinners then the Gitzit are it.

Ok, so overall a great start and am hoping to be catching a lot more fish this season. Till next time.

Generic Medium Diving Crankbait

When it comes to crankbait there is many choices out there. So far my favorite crankbait is the Rapala Rattlin 05 Lipless Crankbait, but the only thing I don't like about it is the cost.  At about $7 for one, this baby doesn't come cheap. So the search is on to find less expensive crankbait that catches fish as good as the Rapala Rattler.

After some searching on eBay I decided to buy this:

It's a generic medium diving crankbait. I bought three of them for about a $1.30 each.  I should be going fishing next weekend so I will have an opportunity to test it out. I'll post my performance report at that time.

Keepin' Busy During Fishing Off Season

Winter time means pretty much no fishing for me as the weather in New York is too cold for me to enjoy fishing. So how is a fisherman suppose to stay happy during those months? Why, you got to buy some fishing gear of course and that's exactly what I'm doing.

I lost some lures during prior fishing trips so I wanted to stock up on some cheap fishing gear that looked descent enough that it would catch some fish. So I went on eBay (of course) and looked around and here is what I found.

It's a half ounce fishing spoon that measures a little more than 2 inches. The fish scale like pattern caught my attention in particular and was the main reason I bought a set of 5 of these. They were fairly cheap coming in at about .95 cents a peace.

Now the only question is: will they catch fish? Let's hope the answer is yes. What do you think?

No Fish but a Lesson Learned

Since I bought my new fishing gear last week I’ve been itching to test it out and I did get a chance last weekend. The fishing trip didn’t go according to plan, however, since I came back empty handed, but I did learn one important lesson.

Before I get to the lesson, let me just describe what happened. I went fishing with my friend like usual. Upon arrival at Kensico Reservoir I went looking for shallow type of water with lots of rocks. This is because Lake Trout like to be around that type of water this time of year. There were couple of enticing locations that I decided to try out.

It all looked so promising. About every 15 minutes I either saw ripples in the water, or heard a large splash made by a fish. That was proof that there were fish where I was fishing. But none of them wanted to get on the end of my hook.

Since the fish were splashing a little farther than where I was, I decided to get my new heavier spoons so I can cast longer and get to them. I bought four different size spoons that weighed 1 oz., ¾ oz. and ⅝ oz. and this is where I learned the lesson. The lesson was: when buying casting fishing tackle, do consider the weight of the lure and the line you are using.

The spoons I bought were way too heavy for the fishing line.  I had a 12 lb. line which snapped after couple of casts because the lures were too heavy. I ended up loosing all four of the brand new lures that I bought and not getting a single strike all day.

Well, I hope next time I’ll have more luck and am not buying heavy lures unless I have a heavier line on my spool.

My New Fishing Gear for Lake Trout

Last trip left me kind of depleted so I decided to visit my local fishing store and pick up some fishing gear for my next fishing trip. I’m still trying to catch a lake trout so I wanted to buy some lures that would be the most effective on landing one. Here is what I got.

Spoons seem to be very effective on lake trout so I bought four different ones. I don’t have a boat and am trying to catch lake trout from the shore so I decided to buy a little bit more heavy spoons so I can cast longer. Before I was casting out with 1/4 oz. spoons but those are a bit too light and I can’t cast them that far. With these heavier ones I’ll be able to throw them out about 20 or 30 feet more which will hopefully increase my chances of catching my first trout.

For lures specific to catching lake trout I went with:
1. Gold Color 1/2 oz. Hurricane Kast-A-Way Slim Mino Spoon with Green and Red Bucktail
2. Silver Color 1/2 oz. Southbend Kast-A-Way Spoon with White Bucktail
3. Gold Color 5/8 oz. Hurricane Kast-A-Way Wobbler
4. Silver Color 1 oz. Hurricane Kast-A-Way Spoon with White Bucktail

All the above are spoons meant for catching lake trout. Am casting from shore so I went with heavier ones in 1/2 oz. to 1 oz. which will allow me to cast my lure farther than with a lighter type of lures. I also wanted them to have a bucktail. I saw how the tail reacts in water and it seems to have a wobbling action that is sure to attract fish. 

But that’s not all. Fishing store I went to had some other stuff on sale. Here is some other items I purchased.

1. Blaze Hardbait Lipless Crankbait
2. Zoom Super Fluke Baby Bass Plastic Baits
3. Gitzit Radon Spinners 5pk

The above lures are meant more for catching largemouth bass than trout but the price was right so I decided to expand my arsenal a bit.

I should be going fishing either this week or the next. That’s when am going to have a chance to test these lures. I’ll let you know how I do with them in my next post.

Red Colors Didn't Work as Planned

My latest fishing trip went according to plan but it didn’t have the outcome I was hoping for. The plan was to use red color lures in the mourning and then go with brighter colors in the afternoon. So as soon as I got out by the water I reached for a red and black South Bend Spinner, then a black and red plastic worm on a Texas rig, followed by my brand new Northland Buck-Shot Rattle Gold Spoon.

Unfortunately nothing worked. I didn’t get a bite for about an hour so I went into by tackle box for some other lures. I got a strike on South Bend Bucktail Spoon but I couldn’t hook the fish. It just fell back into the water.

After couple of hours of fishing we decided to move to another spot. I saw some fallen down trees which looked very promising. After trying all types of spoons, crankbait and other lures around the trees and not getting anything, I went for plan B. I setup a bottom rig with two live worms and opened up a fresh can of beer. I caught a seven inch Yellow Perch after some times so I guess plan B worked somewhat.

Ok, so my strategy didn’t work this time around. I think the problem was locating the fish. So for next time I have to work on finding the fish first and then on what type of lure to get them with.