Fishing Tackle is Important to Get Right So Make Sure You Do Some Research Before You Buy Anything

One of the most important aspects of fishing is getting the right fishing tackle. If you don't have this right then everything else will be wrong as well. There are various kinds of tackle available on today's market but you'll need to do some research if you want to find the right options for your needs. Just make sure that you take your time and don't be afraid to ask for advice if you need it.

There are a lot of fishing forums on the web these days and plenty of online communities that discuss everything related to fishing. If you are a beginner or if perhaps you are just looking to join a fishing community then you should consider joining a forum and asking questions and getting advice.

The forums on the web are probably where most of the information you learn will come from so use them wisely. Fishing tackle does come in a range of different sizes, shapes and styles and depending on where you're fishing you'll also need to consider what sort of tackle you need.

The products you need will more than likely be available on the web and this means you can save quite a bit of money. Buying online is quite easy these days and you can find a range of brilliant products. You shouldn't have any problems finding what you need but it may take some time to find what you need at a price you can afford.

Most of the time, fishing items are widely available so finding the right fishing tackle is simple. Once you've found the right tackle, you'll then need to compare a few prices and get yourself a good deal. Remember that you're doing this for fun and the minute you rush into a purchase, you're risking that fun by maybe ending up with something you don't want or need.

Overall, buying fishing tackle on the web is really easy as long as you ensure that your research is thorough. Don't rush into anything and make sure that you join some sort of fishing community. You will be surprised at how many friendly people are available to talk to when you fancy a chat.

Spider Grubs - A Bait for All Seasons

Delaware and Maryland Ponds, Lakes, and Rivers are receiving more and more pressure as each year goes by, not just from weekend anglers, but tournament fishing as well. If you apply some new tactics with these Spider Grubs, you can be more productive in your recreational and tournament fishing alike.

Surprisingly, this deadly soft plastic bait is not a staple in everyone's tackle box, but in many other states, it is a long time favorite lure when the going gets tough. Several companies makeSpider grubs, but I prefer the ones made by "Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits" the best. The grubs come in a variety of colors and sizes, from two to five inches long. They are absolutely deadly on spring largemouth and smallmouth bass alike.

A Spider Grub

Most anglers like to use them on jig heads, and this is an extremely effective method, but I also like to rig them Texas style. The grub resembles a darting crawfish depending on how you fish it. It is the most effective in clear water, but also produces bass in stained and muddy water also. The lure is compact like a jig and pig, as versatile as a worm, can be fished vertically or horizontally, fast or slow. You can pitch it, flip it, swim it, hop it, or drag it on the bottom. Here are some of the ways I like to fish it in Delaware and Maryland waters, and elsewhere throughout the country, that really produce bass well.

Search Tool
When searching for bass, you want to try to cover the water quickly. The Spider grub is a great search tool when you're looking for bass that are feeding on crawfish around scattered weeds, and rocks on shallow flats like the Susquehanna, or similar shallow areas. You can fish it faster than a jig, cover the water quickly, and trigger more reaction strikes, The earth tone colors are easy to match with the forage and blend in well with the surroundings. This is critical in clear water, when the bass rely more on sight. Sometimes I like to fish it fast, with an erratic, jerk bait type motion. The lure is always moving, but on or near the bottom.

When I fish the open flats with scattered grass, I rig it on a light jighead, or if the cover is thicker, I rig it Texas style. I found that I land more fish If the hook is exposed, and if it becomes hooked on weeds occasionally, I jerk it free, sometimes causing a reaction strike. I like to use 1/8 ounce or 1/4 ounce jigheads, depending on the depth of the water, wind, currents, or how hard it is to keep on the bottom. I also prefer to fish them on a 61/2 to 7 foot spinning rod with a medium action soft tip, in graphite. Using 6-8 pound test Stren line. Sometimes you can go to 10 pound line, depending on the cover. The light line gives the bait more action, and is less likely to hang up in the weeds. I have used these successfully on the grass flats in the Potomac River and on the Susquehanna flats. Working it the right way takes some practice. You want the lure to scoot along in short bursts, on or near the bottom, without making excessive hops. Don't pull it too hard, or you will lose contact with the bottom. Keep the rod low to the water, and on the side of the boat so the wind doesn't bow the line, and ruin the action of the bait.

Keep contact with the bait at all times, because many of the strikes will feel mushy or heavy like it is on grass, but most of the time when I set the hook, it is a bass. If it is just weeds, it pulls free and sometimes triggers a strike.

Different Techniques
Swimming the Grub-sometimes I swim the grub like a jerk bait. Once in a tournament the bass were ignoring the jerk bait, so I switched to thespider grub, and fished it erratically over the weeds, stopping it occasionally. This triggered the strikes that I needed to win. 15 pounds of bass slammed thespider grub while ignoring the other jerkbaits and crankbaits that were being worked in the same area.

Dragging the Grub-sometimes when I am fishing on a long, sandy, gravel point, I use a stand up jighead and just pull it slowly on the bottom. I work it very slow, and maintain contact with the bottom all the time. Also, I Carolina-Rig the bait, and when I feel it hit rocks or heavy cover, I start shaking the line, and this cause strikes to occur much of the time. This has been working reel well in lakes in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, but I have used it with success all over the country.

Suspended Fish-Frequently after a cold-front moves through, bass will suspend over some structure. When this occurs, You can rig itTexas style , on a very light weight, or with no weight at all, and let it float down to the bottom. When conditions are tough, this works wonders at times by keeping the bait in front of the fish longer. I have even tried Drop-shotting this bait with success. There are more prone to strike the bait with this method, over a bait that moves quickly by them When you are searching for fish, and the going gets tough, this is the bait to try. I like to use a good spinning rod, such as G.Loomis or St.Croix, and a good reel like a Shimano or Daiwa. Sensitivity is very important, and a combination such as this improves your chances of catching them when they strike. This technique has worked well in clear lakes all over the Midwest, and in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey. I caught a lot of nice bass using these methods at Table Rock Lake, in Missouri also. Whether it is spring, summer, fall, or winter, this is a bait for all seasons.

Swimming Lessons

“In places where we used to throw spinnerbaits, we’re now swimming a Slurpies Rock‐R
Minnow swimbait with mind‐boggling results,” stated Team Northland tournament ace Jeff Gustafson. “Especially in tournaments, we’re catching a lot of really big bass.”

The West coast sensation of pitching supersized swimbaits for hulking largemouths is far from
new, of course. More recently, however, anglers across North America have begun to embrace
a swimbait subcategory: 4 to 6‐inch hollow‐bodied swimmers sporting wide, flat paddletails.

Yet while most of these hollow‐bellied swimbaits yield a distinct side‐to‐side roll that certainly
attracts fish, anglers have also discovered that the baits don’t hook bass particularly well.
Indeed, many of the hollow‐bodied baits have shown a tendency to ball up inside a bass’s
mouth. When this happens, the hook point inevitably buries itself back into the thick‐walled
plastic, rather than the fish’s jaw.

Slurpies Rock‐RMinnow

Fortunately for anglers, vital design innovations have produced an extraordinary, singular
design, similar to the original hollow‐bodied baits, yet superior in nearly every respect. “Since
we introduced the Slurpies Rock‐R‐Minnow several months ago, my phone’s been ringing off
the hook with anglers demanding more packs of these things,” said Northland Fishing Tackle
Brand Manager and bass pro, John Crane. “These are top‐shelf fishermen, too—some of the
best bass anglers in the Midwest. I don’t think fish have seen anything quite like these Rock‐RMinnows
yet.”

Crane continued: “What we wanted was a bait that was easy for anyone to fish, and simple to
rig, even while traveling fast in a boat. It had to be weedless, too. And we knew we had to make
this bait hook bass much better than the hollow‐bodied versions.”

The solution, according to Crane, was to give the bait a slotted, open belly, including a notched
dorsal opening for allowing the hook to effortlessly slide through and penetrate jaw flesh. At
the same time, Crane said, this special dorsal slot insets the hook point slightly during the
retrieve, yielding a clean, snag‐free presentation.

In addition, the bait features a tough, semi‐rigid head that holds up well with a variety of rigging
options. Married to Northland’s 6/0 screw‐lock Lipstick hook, for example, the Rock‐R becomes
a pretty durable softbait. “We’ve had anglers tell us they’re catching over a dozen bass on a
single bait,” Crane relayed. “For a softbait, that’s pretty impressive.”

Unlike original hollow‐bodied baits, whose portly, tubular shapes aren’t specifically imitative of
anything in nature, these new generation swimbaits feature a lean, baitfish‐mimicking profile,
complete with distended gill covers, supple, rippling fins, and other anatomically‐correct
features. In a lure category renowned for realism, swimbaits like the Slurpies Rock‐R‐Minnow
are apparently proving worthy of the name.

Moreover, they’re among the only paddletail swimbaits available whose shape closely mimics
the soft‐rayed preyfish preferred by predators: shiners, ciscoes, alewives, shad, blueback
herring, and gobies. Even the bait’s material is softer and more pliable, relative to hollowbodied
baits, whose plastic often feels slightly rigid to the touch. Of course, the real difference
lies in underwater action, performance, and ultimately, fish appeal. “The Rock‐R‐Minnow’s
naturally soft texture yields a fluid yet seductive wobble that really appeals to big bass,” offered
Gustafson, who won the highly‐competitive 2008 Kenora Bass International (KBI) event on Lake
of the Woods, Ontario.

“We discovered during development that the slotted body of the Rock‐R‐Minnow produced a
much more dynamic swimming action than the hollow‐body versions. Not only that, but the
bait held up to many more strikes and fish catches. That’s critical in North Country waters
where all kinds of toothy predators swim—walleye, pike, muskies, plus smallmouths and
largemouths. They all love these swimbaits.”

For working the bait faster over shallow cover‐laden flats—places you’d normally throw a
spinnerbait—most anglers prefer a 3/16‐ounce weighted swimbait hook, as opposed to a
lighter 1/8‐ounce. “With the added weight, it’s possible to rocket out some pretty long casts,
Gustafson offered. “Still, to fish these baits effectively, you have to use the right equipment. I
like a 7’2” medium‐heavy Shimano Cumara casting rod teamed with a Shimano Curado reel,
which has a 7:1 gear ratio, and 20‐pound fluorocarbon. Lighter 15‐pound test works for
openwater and smallmouths.”

Cast and simply begin reeling at a steady rate, pausing to “kill” the bait near high spots on the
flat, or close to cover objects such as stumps or weed clusters. “When bass strike these baits,”
Crane said, “they usually engulf them entirely. Just drop your rod back toward the fish, reel up,
and sweep the hookset until your rod loads into a deep bend. Lots of times, these are really big
fish.”

“Some of the region’s top anglers are using Slurpies Rock‐R‐Minnows in competition, but they
haven’t been telling anyone. Well, other than us, that is,” Northland’s Crane recalled with a grin. “And they’re only telling us because they need more baits.”