jeb

I figured the stripers were running around here. Saw a bunch of striper boats in the back of the PC cove when I drove out to go hunting with Quillback. Even saw a "fish on" moment from one boat when we were coming home. Thanks for the report!

Not bad for a cold front day, I guess. I don't fish live bait, so not sure what would be a normal day with that. I hear the whites are running bigtime up by Twin Bridges. And everybody knows about it. :-)

I wondered with you guys talking about worms behind them. The biffle bug type lures are also called wobble heads. Guess I need to start including the "jig" part when I talk about them.

Wobble Head is the same as the Biffle Bug, right? If so, yeah, I've fished them plenty. Was throwing them on Beaver again today, actually. Caught a really nice fish on one last week. I use the Sweet Beaver/Biffle Bug type trailers on them. The fish in my avatar picture was caught on one last spring.

I agree. I think you'd be losing a ton of these in snaggy areas. And at $5 a pop, that'd get painful fast. Might hook a few more fish, though. Although you have to wonder about his testing method. Only one jig hooked on the side of his test stand with all the jigs he pulled through it, except for his jigs, of course. I don't know about you guys, but my hook up percentage using standard jigs is WAY higher than that. It's actually unusual for me to not hook them.

Got you. I returned your PM.

Yeah, you need to consider how fast you want to recharge the batteries. If you have drawn 60amps out of a battery during a day of fishing, for example, and hook it to that 6 amp charger, it would take about 20 hours to bring the battery to full charge at its 3amp per hour per battery rate. An 8amp would make that a little quicker at about 15 hours. There's also a discssion to be had about slower charging rates possibly being better for battery life. So lots of stuff to think about.

I have definitely found that the A-rig is NOT a cold front bait. It's a better bait for when the fish are at least somewhat actively feeding, in my experience so far.

I hate hauling my boat in snowy crap like this. It's only like a 1/4 mile down the hill to where I put in, but still a mess. Hope you get out there!

I was going to mention that, too. HLS has a great selection of A-rigs. I think I saw some as low as $9.99 when I was in the Rogers store the other day. And they have some great swimbaits for them too, like the Keitechs. Those guys are local and bend over backwards to make the customer happy. Please consider throwing some of that tackle money their way.

How many amps do you want? I see Cabela's has a heck of a sale going on for the Pro Mariner 6amp, 2 battery (3 amps per battery) charger right now. Only $50! I have a brand new Pro Mariner "ProSport8" charger sitting on a shelf in the garage I'd probaby be willing to sell. That would be 4 amps per battery per hour.

I started throwing them on a Johnny Morris Gold 7:1 reel. And it worked fine for it. But I recently purchased a Calcutta TE200GT pretty much just for throwing A-rigs. And it's working great. I really like the 5:1 ratio better. Makes it easier to slow roll it, which seems to be the most effective way to fish it. And I appreciate how much easier it is to crank it with those big gears. The only downside is it does not hold a lot of 65lb braid. I may swap it for my Calcutta 250DC at some point, for the 250's larger capacity. Nice reels, Bill! I'm sure they'll sell fast at those prices.

Trout in Prarire Creek? Never heard of that before. Makes sense they'd have come from Lake Atalanta. Been a fair amount of traffic around PC the last few days. Seems to still be active fish in the area, judging from the number of boats.

Agreed. Not being a tourny guy, I'll put up with the occasional lost fish in order to have a much better chance of getting my A-rig back. I've caught them up to 5lbs on the light wire hooks so far, and plenty of 3 and 4 pounders. I bet I'd have lost at least 20 A-rigs if it was not for the light wire hooks I've been using. Or maybe I just would not be fishing them around the same type of cover, which would cut down on my success rate, I'm sure. Not running your product down. Just hoping you'll make some light wire versions for us non-tourny guys.

That's the way I looked at it at first, too. And I think there is some validity to that. But I mixed it up a little when I was up to Table Rock a couple of days ago. I had to take two of the hooks off anyway so experimented with the 2 "oddballs". Put a grub on one, fluke type bait on the other, 2 flukes, 2 grubs, etc. The hooked baits were paddle tails. Still seemed to get a lot of fish to take it. So I wonder if mixing it up can actually attract fish that might otherwise ignore it because you don't have that "match the hatch" bait on there to bring in for a meal. Just another way to look at it.

Caught a 20.5" smally on Beaver the other day on an A-rig. 2 other smaller ones on it in the last 2-3 weeks, too.

We saw huge bunches of those small shad in the Clifty arm recently, too. Bass should get fat this year with no kill off! I'm already starting to see some surface activity, like you say. Might have to bust out a Pop'r.

Thanks for the report. Unless we get a heck of a cold snap, it sure doesn't look like we're going to get a shad kill this year. Been an odd winter so far, fishing-wise.

I like the San Diego Jam knot. Same knot I use for all my lures. I've had quite a number of snags where I had to pull very hard on the 65lb braid to get my A-rig back, to the point of cutting a couple of fingers a bit, and the knot has not failed me yet.

Funny! The odd thing about the day Jeff/Quillback is talking about is that it was on a Bella Vista lake, which I can't fish by myself as I'm not a property owner in their "village". So I only see those lakes out of the back of Jeff's boat. Jeff is a good fishermen and normally outfishes me, especially out of the front of his boat. They were sure liking that A-rig that day, though.

Have to agree with you there, especially for tourneys where they take the fish so many miles down the lake away from their beds and cause them a lot of stress in the process. Most northern states do not open bass season until after the spawn should be done.

i've been using 65lb braid to cast the A-rig, and fairly lightwire hooks. Snagged it a bunch of time on rocks, trees, brush piles and even Pea Ridge military park cedars they just planted in Beaver lake. I've yet to lose one. But I have lost my biggest two fish, too. So pluses and minuses with the light wire hooks.

It's not as bad as you'd think. I've been throwing it for 3 weeks or so now. First few times, I'd spend hours with it in my hands. I'd guess the entire rig would come in at around 2 ounces. So much larger than anything I'm used to. And I really thought it'd be more a chore to deal with than it actually turned out to be. Easier to retrieve than a deep diving crankbait, but casting does take a little more power. But it's not like I'm sore at the end of the day or anything.

I agree they could put more time into planting them in better places. I was all excited when I saw them planting them last year figuring the fish would flock to them. But that never really happened, probably because they are not on an otherwise "fishy" area.

I still see a fair number of striper guys in the PC area, where you're talking about. Haven't seen anyone pull one in for a while, though. Not sure where the stripers are right now, but they do not seem to be around PC. Saw the "Big Dog" striper guide launch at Lost Bridge South last Thursday. Quillback and I fished out of that same park that day. And we did find shad in that area. I caught a 5.9lb LM on a flutter spoon in Clifty Arm, if my Rapala digital scale is to be believed. I tested it after I caught that fish and it seems pretty accurate. Was the biggest fish I'd caught on Beaver since last spring, so nice to see. Caught some BIG white bass, too, thanks to Quillback/Jeff's good eyes!