Advice, Springfield Area: Struggles of a Bad Angler

[Gavin]

You lost me with the long BS. Name where you want to catch fish and someone here will go and put a GPS blinker, Christmas tree ornament, a sexy hooker without VD, and a sack lunch out for you. Name the place.

[Jerry Rapp]

I think Jimmy is a heck of a troller

[Dutch]

I think that he is a frustrated guy who wants to learn.  That is why we plan to hook up and talk more in-depth than we can on the forum.

[top_dollar]

When you're on lake Springfield,  throw a  weightless wacky rigged soft stick bait under the same overhangs and vegetation that you throw a crankbait.  Just pitch it in there, let it sink 5 or 1p seconds.  Then shake the tod tip just a bit, let sit another 5 or 10 seconds.  Then reel in and repeat.  Use a spinning rod. Put that worm under as many trees as you can.  At lake Springfield youll generally catch a handful of small bass per hour, with an occasional fish bigger than 15inches.  

I suspect when you're on stockton you're fishing too shallow.  Get out to about 20 foot of water off the end of a point.  Use half of a nightcrawler (or less) on the back of an eighth oz jig.  Just drag it around the bottom.  If you dont have a fish finder on your yak, you'll wanna be moving around alpt until you get bit.  Try right off the end of the point and along both sides.  

[jimithyashford]

9 hours ago, Jerry Rapp said:

I think Jimmy is a heck of a troller

I have a hard time catching fish in the Ozarks and came to the Ozark Anglers forum for advice and guidance. I dunno what part of that seems like trolling to you, but I assure you it's not.

[jimithyashford]

10 hours ago, Gavin said:

You lost me with the long BS. Name where you want to catch fish and someone here will go and put a GPS blinker, Christmas tree ornament, a sexy hooker without VD, and a sack lunch for you. Name the place.

BS? I mean most people always ask me "when are you fishing, what are you using, what how are you retriving" etc, So I just got all that out of the way right off the bat. Its not BS, it's just preemptive.

And I don't want a fish with a hook already in it's mount waiting for me to paddle up and reel it in. I just want more than an average of one fish per 4 or 5 hours on the water. I don't think that's crazy.

[ColdWaterFshr]

We should all reach out to help Jimmy on his journey.  Who among us hasn't been skunked at Fellows Lake?  or passed out from heat exhaustion under the Hwy 65 bridge on a blanket only to wake up in the morning with chigger bites on your junk and raccoons that got into your chicken livers and not catfish ?  Raise your hand??!!  ........... thats what I thought.

 

 

 

Jimmy's story is a cry for help.  Its not so much SAD, as it is HOPELESS.  So I'm going to offer my services.  What I think this calls for is a  12-step program to bring this newb out of the wilderness and into party rooms of stringer after stringer of big, big fish, tackle sponsors banging down your door,  trophies, and of course cocaine, and all night parties with playboy bunnies.  

So, here we go:

Step 1.  Refund.  If you still got the receipt on those rooster tails, take them back from whence they came.   Or better yet, put them in a burlap sack tightly rubber banded to a dead house-cat and bury it in a cemetery at midnight.  A road-kill armadillo will work in a pinch too.

Step 2.  Location.  Quit going to the James River, Fellows Lake, and Lake Springfield, and Stockton.  I'll let you in on a little secret . . . . . these places suck.  Oh, and before you get tempted by exotic locales like McDaniel Lake, and Finley Creek they suck too.  Now, Wilson Creek --- there's a creek you should seek out.  shhhhh, don't tell anyone.

Step 3.  Proper Hydration.  Start drinking Old Crow bourbon, heavily, at least an hour before each fishing trip.  It gives you instinctive clarity and an edge, but more importantly, courage, to resist tying on a rooster tail or a treble hook with a goddam chicken liver on it.  Old Crow bourbon in particular has some kinda fish-mojo pheromone.

Step 4.  Wear a lot of bug spray, especially on your junk.  It only stings for the first few minutes.

Step 5.  Confidence.  You need it bad.  Get you some old Lee Marvin movies and watch them all.  

Step 6. Diet.  Eat lots of Cashew Chicken and Mexican Villa (sancho, enchilada style) is especially good for keeping you regular and will help build muscle mass, particularly in the forearms, these foods will help you develop high reflex response - which comes in handy for setting the hook.  I have a feeling you are missing a lot of bites because you are not setting the hook.

Step 7. Rest.  Sleep at night, under heavy medication, and during the summer, don't even bother to start fishing until about 1 p.m.  Buy a 24 lb bag of ice and set it on your lap while you fish.  This really works.

Step 8.  Quit reading fishing magazines while at the barber shop or waiting for an oil change.  You are only reinforcing your own poor self esteem if you do this.

Step 9.  Make sure all your fishing rods are high modulus graphite and cost a lot.  Same with your fishing reels.  Nothing less than 10 ball bearings and Japanese.  Skip the Johnny Morris signature series garbage.

Step 10.  Fishing Line.  Buy this on sale at garage sales.  They don't make good fishing line the way they used to.  The Stren purple stuff, if you can find it in a big spool at some old codgers estate sale . . . . BUY IT.

Step 11.  Practice casting in front of a mirror.  3 hours a day.

Step 12.  Put more pressure on yourself.  You have acknowledged that you are a terrible fisherman, and that is a good first step in recognizing that you need to significantly increase your expectations.  Necessity is the mother of invention, so go ahead and get mad at yourself.  Its okay to throw your fishing rod into the water at Montauk or Bennett Springs.  Those fish don't respect you anyway, nor do they deserve your respect.

[Guest]

Deleted.

[Greasy B]

 

I have to admit ColdWaterfshr’s plan is a good one. 

Something to keep in mind is that those who catch fish regularly are usually good at fishing a couple of ways in a few places. It often takes decades to figure out the where and when’s of fishing, even if you stick to a few techniques in a few places  When you’re learning it helps to have low expectations, I think you’re good there. I’d just keep trying different things in different places and enjoy the ride. 

 One thing I’m almost certain of is that still fishing isn’t fishing unless you’re catching one every few minutes. 

[Greasy B]

4 minutes ago, Greasy B said: