Believe It or Not - Fishn' Tips

This does not involve the spinner flies, but is a technique that is very difficult to accomplish.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT

This happened a couple years ago at a small private lake in southwestern Pennsylvania. It was a beautiful morning for catching trout as the sun began to rise and the trout were feeding on top water insects.

I started out with a brown hackle spinner fly and caught several fish. My wife and I, after a few hours of fishing, decided to have a lunch break. There was a small snack and bait shop nearby so I visited it for a soft drink and sandwich.

But before going, I baited my hood with a worm and attached a bobber about five feet above the hook and cast it out. While I was gone, I was hoping that a trout may pick up the bait.

I was gone for about 20 to 30 minutes. Upon returning, my wife said my bobber had went down once, but came right back up.

After a couple of minutes, I looked out across the lake for my bobber and it was gone. So, in turn, I jerked the rod and discovered that I had a fish on. The fish was pulling very hard and causing quit a disturbance on top of the water.

A fisherman, close by, asked if he could give assistance by netting the fish. Upon netting the fish, I began to untangle my line for the net and discovered my bobber was about four feet from the fish and the hood was five feet from the bobber. In other words, the fish did not have a hook in it, no place.

You are now wondering, how did I catch the fish, this beautiful 18” Rainbow Trout?

If you remember, I cast my line out and let it drift for about 20 to 30 minutes causing a large amount of line to become floating in the water. Well, the fish swam into the line and the line became tangled around the fish and when I jerked the rod, it tightened up the line around the fish’s head like a lasso and held the fish. The harder it pulled, the tighter it became.

Now, this is a technique that I have not been able to accomplish ---- LASSOING TROUT

TRUE STORY

1) Worst Time to Fish----when the snow water is running into the streams. They

get what I call “Lock Jaw"

2) Best Time to Fish----when the ice on a lake is melting and an opening has
occurred. Fish at the edge of the ice and continue to fish at the edge as the
opening gets larger.

3) For best results for catching trout on spinner flies----use a slow retrieve and a

larger size spinner,

4) After the lake has completely opened up from the ice covering and begins to

warm, fish the shallow water with a spinner fly at a slow retrieve.

5) Locating fish while fishing from shore of a lake, cast in a fan covered area

before moving and adjust to different depths by counting to 5 or 8 before

retrieving the lure. This covers the different depths and helps to locate the

level the fish are feeding in that area.

Fish lures close to the top of the water on cloudy days
and lures that sink on sunny days

Tips for Small Mouth Bass - Early Spring

1) Know you’re spawning areas for the small mouth bass because this is the

key factor for catching BIG Spring Smallmouth Bass.

2) When checking out spawning areas for smallies, check out those protective

areas around islands, usually the back current side of the island. Those slow

moving current sides of the island where the water is shallow.

3) In low visibility water conditions, using bait with some bright colors or bait

that has plenty of vibrations will increase your catching ability.

4) When the temperature starts moving past the 40 degrees, this is when the

bass start cruising around. They are looking for the spawning areas

and they begin the aggressive feeding trends until the bedding period

starts.

5) As the temperatures get to 50, the feeding increases and by the time it reaches the

60 degree mark, they are very aggressive and start their spawning cycle.

Feel free to contact us anytime if you have comments, questions, or suggestions. We would also appreciate being informed over any dead links on our site. Thank you for your interest.

customerservice@jerrysflies.com

Or Call Direct (304)842-2786 FAX (304)842-2786
Our office hours are 10:00am to 5:00pm EST