Hi All,

Most people here talk about rod building (!), but I am just interested to ask what kind of fishing you mainly do, the fish species, tackle, lures, baits etc. It would be interesting because most members are probably spread around North America and the remainder around the world.
(I am happy for this to be removed if it is innapropriate)

I fish for brown and rainbow trout in freshwater lakes and rivers in my home state of Tasmania, a small island state at the bottom of Australia.
A mixture of boat fishing and from the shore / river bank.
I fly fish about 20% and spin fish 80% of the time, For fly fishing I use 4wt-6wt gear. Spin Fishing I use typically 6ft - 7ft, 2-6lb / 4-8lb rods, 1000 - 2500 reels, 4-6lb braid and mono line. Typical lures for trout are soft plastics (Berkley 3" power minnows and 3" t-tails with 1/16oz jig heads) and hardbody minnows.

I also do some boat fishing in the estuaries / inshore saltwater for flathead, using similar gear to the above and squid for bait or soft plastics. It is a very common, bottom dwelling, tasty fish that everybody here catches for consumption rather than for sport.

Cheers
Dale

Hobart, TAS
Australia

My passion is the pursuit of salmon and steelhead up here in the Pacific Northwest. It's an addiction actually! Mostly gear fishing from the bank in the Columbia and the tributaries.

Bass in So. Calif.

Don Campbell
don@sensorfishingrods.com

Fly fishing anywhere in the world! Primarily for Trout & Steelhead. Favorite place to fish, British Columbia.

Infrequently do saltwater for Bonefish, Tarpon and Dorado. Bass once in a while and just starting to do Carp.

Build fly rods for clients, friends, family and donations. Favorite blanks, Batson and MHX.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2014 04:35PM by Phil Erickson.

Walleye and Perch in the western basin of Lake Erie

I am fishing from the bank ,just in salt water with artificial with long spinning rods built by me on fly blanks,or with some fly rods(SAGE RPLX, G.LOOMIS IMX) change by me in spinning rods.
I am disable(problems with my leg),i don't have boat or kayak and i am fishing with braid(FIRELINE ORIGINAL SMOKE 4lb.,SPIDERWIRE ULTRACAST 6 lb.,8 lb. ,10 lb.,TASLAN ALL WHITE 8 lb.,15 lb.)+fluorocarbon leader (8 lb.-14 lb.)catching speckled trout,flounder ,red fish,black drum,Spanish mackerel,croaker ,withing,etc.) on ROLLOVER PASS channel on Bolivar Peninsula,Texas( [texascoastgeology.com]).

I fish for spotted bass and largemouth bass in the southeast US. My home lakes are Lake Guntersville in Alabama and Lake Lanier in Georgia. I have tried walleye in Minnesota, and had a good time doing that.

Bert Nagy

I fish primarily in Wisconsin for musky, walleye, bluegill, crappie, salmon and catfish.

Typically- casting rods with large lures for musky, spin fishing/ trolling/ ice fishing for walleyes, jigging/ ice fishing for bluegills and crappie, spin fishing/ trolling for salmon and bottom fishing for catfish.

What some of you may find amusing, is how I prefer to ice fish. It is known as "tubing". 12" holes are cut through the floor of a truck or car and a 12" diameter length of PVC pipe is placed from the hole in the floor to the hole in the ice. Fishing is done from the comfort of inside the vehicle. When the school moves, it's time to move the vehicle.

Primary fishing is For Stripedbass from the Surf here in Southern New Jersey, mostly spinning rods from 11'4" to 13'6" casting up to 6 or 8 OZ plus bait.

This is a great thread.

I fish locally for smallmouth, trout, and carp to keep my skills sharp for 6-8 saltwater trips per year, though I am starting to fish local lakes more regularly. I am currently wrapping an ip963f for local fishing, in an attempt to cast small lures further.

In the brine, I jig for cod and pollack. Rods for this sort of jigging are my favorite to build. I like these telephone poles with size twenty tips. They are the kind of rod that is really only available as a custom.

Surf and estuary fishing for striped bass is another of my favorite types of fishing. For this, I also tie bucktail jigs, which has turned my basement into a tackle factory. Unfortunately, like cod fishing, the quality of the striper fishery has declined. In the past, I used to chum and drift chunks from shore, which is interesting, challenging, and catches large fish. Now I mostly target smaller fish on flats with single hook lures.

Last fall I caught a false albacore for the first time after years of trying and failing, with a splasher and fly. This fall I will be making a few trips to target them with a spasher and fly rig. This rig fascinates me, and I am working on designing some rods for casting these rigs over 100 yards.

Unlike many others, I mostly use mono (6lb fresh, 15lb salt, 50lb for cod). I often have to wrap a blank 2-3 times to get the guides right for 15 lb ande mono. Lately I have been experimenting with braid and 30' mono leaders for distance casting. This gives stretch but allows for the use of smaller reels and guides.

Surf and inshore fishing North Carolina

Mot's Custom Rods and Reels

Wade fish the lower Texas coastal flats, tossing 1/8 oz jig/soft plastics to speckled trout/redfish/flounder/black drum. 10-12 lb mono/baitcaster w/ 7' ML popping blank. Striper/hybrid striper fish locally between salt trips with alittle heavier gear, also w/ plastics.

Primarily smallmouth fishing in Massachusetts (Quabbin Reservoir-eastern Massachusett's water supply) although it's 90 miles from Boston and lakes in Southern Maine where I run a fishing trip each year for about 14 anglers. Those days in Maine are 100+ fish days for two anglers. One of our Maine group fished at Quabbin two years ago and caught and released a 7lb 1oz smallmouth, only the fourth recorded in Mass in last 50 years. Coincidently, one of my fishing buddies and I designed a smallmouth rod several years ago for just those excursions and low and behold, the rod specs came out nearly identical to those that were published in Rod Maker a few years ago. Pre-spawn we use jerks baits such as those that Lucky Craft puts out, spawn a combination of nose hooked, unweighted, Zoom Super Fluke Jrs. in a pearl white color along with weighted spider grubs for deeper areas.

Quabbin is a fishermen's paradise, restrictive boat conditions include an annual inspection and cleaning, max hp of 25hp 4 stroke, 20hp gas and at inspection boat is "sealed". If seal is broken you are no allowed back on the huge reservoir. No PWC allowed, there are absolutely no buildings on the lake, no public to deal with, just other fishermen going after the same quarry of smallmouth, lake trout and land locked salmon. The Q is around a 25,000 acre fishermen only playground. The way the lake is set up with numerous islands we have been know to run 7-8 miles to reach fishing spots that are only 1 mile from the launch area. Each launch is manned by Mass DCR rangers who greet you with open arms and who will give you tips on current conditions.

I live in Connecticut and Quabbin is a 1.5 hour drive but well worth it during the spring. There is a companion small pond loaded with crappie and sizeable largemouth that I have yet to try but this year my largemouth gear will be tested. One of our crew is a master at fishing the Q in the summer where he usually nails a 5+ smallie each trip fishing in 40-50 feet of water. For most of our smallie fishing we are using size 1000 Shimano reels with 5-6 llb fluorocarbon or mono line that allows us to cast the smallish lures we use and takes a little added skill to battle and land 4-5 lb fish. My personal best has been a pre-spawn 5lb 6 oz smallmouth on a Lucky Craft lure caught in about five feet of water.

For our Maine trip each member gets there own room, breakfast, boat snacks and water, full evening meal with pre-meal snacks and dessert, sauna, fire pit, gas grill and most important four full bath rooms and 2 quick relief rooms, the whole week for about $280 per angler. Also includes 20x30 rec room with HD satellite TV and half-moon shaped boat parking area so no backing up is necessary. We eat very well, BBQ ribs, chicken, steaks, Philly cheese steak sandwiches, ham and beans with corn bread and last year a fish fry done by one of the crew form his winter frozen fish catches. We have had anglers from as far away as Ohio and Michigan and have a regular who comes up each year from Maryland. We are not located on a lake but there is one located 5 minutes from our inn where a one hour trip can yield 20+ fish. It doesn't get much better.

Barry Thomas Sr Wrote:
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> Primary fishing is For Stripedbass from the Surf
> here in Southern New Jersey, mostly spinning rods
> from 11'4" to 13'6" casting up to 6 or 8 OZ plus
> bait.


I'm with Barry. In fact, one of these days I'm going to have to get him to take me fishing, so he can show me his spots!

I am primarily a surf bait fisherman, but I love to plug, too. In fact, I like plugging more than bait fishing, but I catch more fish with bait than with plugs. I'm also like to fly fish, though I'm terrible at it.

I fish from a boat in the delaware bay and atlantic ocean for what ever is dumb enough to get on my hook {flounder,croakers,black sea bass,black drum ,blackfish,striped bass,cod,ling, sea trout and tile fish. use mostly a conventional rod and reel set up of differant sizes. use braid with short mono leader.

I fish private ponds mostly in Central Iowa. About 90% of this is fly fishing, from small boat to shore. I make all my own flies and rods.. Will also spin fish a little. When the opportunity arises, I go to Canada/Minn. for Walleye fishing and out West to streams in Idaho, WY., Montana, CO for trout fishing. I consider the Bluegill a fun and wonderful pursuit. However, I rarely refuse strikes from Bass, Crappie, Catfish, Small Mouth, Perch and Northern.

I' m here Chris

I fish many of the Wisconsin species - musky, pike, LM & SM bass, walleye, panfish. My favorite thing is to vertical jig crappie in deeper (15-20ft) water. I want a very specific rod setup for this which is why I got into rod building.

John Shear
Chippewa Falls, WI

I fish for bass on Kentucky, Barkley, Pickwick, Wilson and Wheeler lakes on the Tennessee River chain of lakes.

East Texas lakes, Fork, Sam Raybourn , Toledo Bend, and a bunch more in between