Whats your favorite fishing lure?

[NNN0LHI]

Here is mine. Its a Rapala F-7 Bleeding Pearl Minnow. Had it for years and never really tried it. I picked it up about a week ago and have been catching one game fish after another with it. Its remarkable. I am go out wading with it right now and see what happens.

[safeinOhio]

1. Heddon Lucky 13

in perch color.

[sofa king]

2. Pearl white grubs for me.

All my fishing is done wading in rivers. I'm chronically broke so I have a fishing gear budget of around $15 a year.

For the past couple of years I haven't had to spend even that much, because all I need to buy anymore is one packet of small white grubs, one packet of small black grubs, and two packets of jig heads in 1/8 and 1/16 oz.--about five bucks worth of stuff. I use 4-pound test line on an ultralight spinning setup.

Most days I fish the white grubs, and catch smallmouth, rock bass (no, not rockfish), river sunfish, catfish and chubs, along with the occasional wierdo like warmouth, largemouth, and trout. If it's mid-day and cloudless, I find that switching over to black works quite well to coax dormant fish into activity. I rarely hook into any kind of fish longer than 18 inches, but a smallmouth that size is an epic fight, and once or twice I've broken my line on a fish that big.

For those of you practicing catch-and-release, as I do, I highly recommend using a pair of pliers to pinch the barbs on your hooks, which hurts the fish less and makes it much, much easier to remove the hook (you'll also lose a lot more fish, but that's okay since they're just going right back, right?).

The grubs work well in any direction, unlike hardbaits which smallmouth only find attractive when they're cast from upstream down. I've had many days where I catch 30-50 fish and never have to change jig heads (the cheap Chinese-made Wal-Mart grubs rarely last more than five or ten fish before they're lost or destroyed).

I do still have a couple of Rapalas around, but I've pinched the barbs on them and clipped off one prong of each treble hook. That seems to make them wiggle a little differently in the water, but more importantly it hurts fish much less, is much less likely to stab the fish with the secondary hook, and seems less likely to get stuck in underwater cover.

[NNN0LHI]

3. Thank you for a lot of good ideas in that post

I had been thinking about using a file on the barbs on mine but using a pair of pliers to pinch the barbs as you suggest sounds a lot easier.

Thanks again for the ideas.

Don

[sofa king]

4. Your're very welcome.

Filing never worked for me, and pinching is theoretically reversible, though I've never tried it.

But there is a small risk that crimping will break the hook. That happens a couple of times each year to me, especially with brass hooks, and especially after I've accidentally used an un-pinched hook and then decide to pinch it in the field--I guess because I'm standing up and in a hurry.

Even if that happens to your expensive Rapalla, all is not lost. You can crimp the other two hooks and further clip the broken one on the treble, or you can back the hook off entirely from the post in the same way that you remove a key from a keyring. And if you don't like it, you can put more and different hooks on in the same way.

You may also be interested in removing the front treble from that Rap and just leaving a clipped and pinched two-prong tail hook. They snag much less often and are a lot easier to remove from trees. I know I've caught just as many trees as I have fish, so it's something to keep in mind!

[NNN0LHI]

5. Squeezed the barbs on my Rapala yesterday with a pair of needle nose pliers

Much better. Like you said I will probably lose a few more but who cares if I am releasing them anyway. If I get to see them just jump once I am happy. Caught one that jumped twice yesterday and I thought for sure he was going to spit out the lure but he didn't. Sure was easy removing them hooks. And I will really appreciate doing it if I happen to hook myself with it.

Thanks again for that suggestion. Made it a lot easier on both the fish and me.

Don

[NNN0LHI]

7. The fish stopped biting on the top so I switched to using jig heads and Power grubs about a week ago

Never used them before and had some of the best fishing in my life. There were a couple of young guys at the lake using them and they taught me how to work them correctly and it was amazing. Guess old dogs can learn new tricks after all.

Took an day or two to learn how to work them correctly and improve on my reaction time but it sure was worth it.

Thanks for that tip too.

Don

[SteveM]

6. For bass, plastic worms have always been reliable...

I've also used small top-water lures by Rapala with good success, esp. in the evening near structure.

One method is to use very small perch as live bait. I catch them on very light tackle (a Shakespeare close-faced using worms or bread), then hook them near the tail with a float above (various depth), and cast the whole affair into an area pretty free of structure, pads, etc. Very common practice in Florida, but works in Texas also.