Fishing Tips

My son has a spincasting reel that needs line, and although I've filled plenty of baitcasting and spinning reels, this has me stumped.	First twist off the cover and remove the old line. Run the new line from the filler spool down through the rod guides, then through the top of the cover opening. Tie it to the spincasting reel spoon, and leave the cover off while you wind line onto the spool under tension. Fill the reel to within 1/8 inch of the top od the spool lip, then put the cover back on. Clip the line off at the filler spool to tie it onto a lure, and you're set.
How close can you get to brush and timber when flipping without scaring bass? Is it better to use a heavier jig to get distance? Do you need a special rod and reel?	As long as the water is murky, you can get fairly close to cover - even just a few feet away - without alarming the fish, assuming you've been quiet in your boat and used your electric motor on low speed and sparingly. Use a fairly heavy jig (or pegged slip sinker and plastic worm) to aid accuracy and help your offering drop quickly under the cover to where the fish are holding. Most flipping is done with baitcasting tackle, using a stiff, one-piece rod about 7 feet long, and a low-profile reel with a "flipping" feature, which allows the line to be stripped out without having to put the reel in total free spool. You can also use heavy-action spinning tackle.
What is a noodle rod and what is it used for?	This is a limber, 12 - 14 foot-long rod paired with light line. It's primarily used in river fishing for steelhead and occassionally salmon, but also for open-water trolling for both species. It is paired with a baitcasting reel and 2 - 8 pound test line. A noodle rod sports a long handle and many guides, which curve around the blank, starting near the butt on top of the rod and ending at the tip underneath it. This unique guide arrangement keeps light line from coming in contact with the shaft when the rod is bent from fighting a large fish, which could cause the line to break.
Where do largemouth bass go and what do they do when it's raining? If the rain is cooler than the water in the pond or lake, do they go to the surface and feed, or does rain make them go to the bottom?	Rain affects anglers more than it does bass. Although thunder and lightning may squelch fish activity, normal amounts of rain don't seem to hurt fishing, and there may actually be increased action right before the rain arrives. You might experience some surface and shallow activity following the rain, but this all depends on the amount of rain, the water temperature before it rained, and other factors. I've seldom had much success surface fishing when it's raining fairly hard, so I'd stick to subsurface or deep presentations in those conditions. Light fluctuations and changing barometric pressure are probably more significant factors than rain.
Where I fish for bass, I also catch pickerel, which often cut my line. How can I avoid this?	Although you can use a steel or titanium-coated wire leader to prevent pickerel from cutting the line, this takes away from the action of many popular bass lures, especially plugs, and may hamper an effective retrieve (a notable exception is spinnerbaits). I often fish where there are bass and pickerel and do not use a leader. Pickerel generally cut the line when you're using small lures, natural bait, or soft-plastic lures, which they are likely to inhale. Using a heavier line can help avoid cutoffs. Check for nicks often (especially after catching a pickerel), and once you've hooked a fish, play it gingerly if you see that the line is inside its mouth.
A friend of mine said that his brother recently fished the Florida Keys and accomplished a "grand slam". What does this term mean?	Obviously borrowed from basebal, the term grand slam usually means catching three or four of the most desirable species in a specific destination in a single day of fishhing; this mostly occurs in saltwater. In the Keys, tarpon, bonefish, and permit constitute a traditional flats grand slam. Adding a snook would make it a super grand slam. In backcountry areas, a grand slam might be redfish, snook and seatrout, with a tarpon making it a super grand slam. This can be configured in any way that makes sense. The International Game Fish Association has offshore and inshore Grand and Super Grand Slam Clubs for feats by a single angler in a single day. They include blue marlin, black marlin, sailfish, swordfish and spearfish in the offshore categories; inshore species include tarpon, bonefish, permit and snook. Catching any three constitutes a grand and any four a super grand slam.
I set a reel drag about 50 percent of my line's wet breaking strength. Why have you suggested in the past that the drag be set at 30 percent? By the way, I put 10 empty bottles (each weighing 8 ounces) in a plastic bag to get 5 pounds of weight to test my 10-pound line.	I think that most people should adjust their reel drag to the point where it slips at between 30 and 35 percent of the wet breaking strength of the line because this compensates for overly hard hooksetting and pulling hard on fish without link breakage. Also, many anglers fish with low line levels on their spools, which increases drag tension as line is played out. If you have plenty of experience, you can go up to 50 percent for those occqasions when you really need the drag to help wear down a fish, although you may need to back off on the tension at times. The trouble with backing the drag off while you're playing a fish is that it's imprecise and easy to reduce tension too far. By the way, you're better off using a good scale attached to the line than a bag of bottles (or any other dead weight), because the scale can be checked easily at various distances and line angles.
How do you attach new line to old line on a reel? I'm not good at knots and wonder if splicing is the way to go.	Save the splicing for rope. Learn to tie a line-to-line Uni knot properly, and it will serve you very well (see Field & Stream, March 1999). I use it all the time. There are two objectives in making a line-to-line connection on a reel. First, you want to maintain 100 percent of the wet breaking strength of both lines (if both are the same strength) or of the weaker line. Second, you need a knot with a profile small enough that it doesn't cause line to build up in one place on the reel spool and thatalso passes through the guides easily. It helps if this knot is one that can be tied quickly, if necessary. The line-to-line Uni meets all of these requirements.
I moved to Florida recently and am struggling to catch fish in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm trying to locate reefs and sunken ships, but can't really tell what they look like on my depthfinder, and the bait I'm using on a heavyweight outfit with 40-pound line has only caught baitfish. Any advice?	Sounds to me like you're trying to learn how to locate refs, catch fish you're unfamiliar with, and learn how to use your sonar and GPS properly, all at the same time. If you take a few trips with local charter captains, you'll cut short the self-teaching experience and gain confidence in the tackle to use, as well as when and where to fish. It would be improper to copy down the GPS coordinates for the place a captain takes you, but it's not improper to study his sonar and familiarize yourself with what you're looking for below.

Fishing Tips