Trout Magnet Fishing 101 - Pond/Panfish Edition

[Travis C.]

Another thing to consider with them is fishing at night. Most people think bluegill is a day activity and its actually up in the air as to whether that is true.

I can't say this is true across the board in all scenarios but in my body of work that I can attest to they do bite at night even under cloudy skies/new moon. My fishing outings are 95% or higher at night year round. They will catch crappie, trout, bass, drum, catfish, hybrids, small striper, white bass, yellow bass and bluegill at night.

Twitching...

[Alphahawk]

Originally Posted by Travis C.

That is a really fun way to fish the TM anytime there is a breeze making a chop on the water. It brings back that feeling you had as a kid watching the bobber go down no matter how old you are.

For most species its pretty straight forward. But for trout it is extremely technical. Sounds silly being "technical" fishing a float but I guarantee it is. You will miss a very high percentage of fish by not recognizing a bite. Trout can and do pull it under but more times than not the float may stop drifting or even quiver a brief second instead. I say all that to say this...if you take them trout fishing don't get discouraged if you don't have the same results with a float as you do on bluegill/crappie.

Did that just this afternoon out at Williamsport. Went to the wind blown side of the lake and fished the TM under the float to test a new JDM rod to see how it handles crappie....albeit small crappie. Really excited to see the float go down.



Regards

[mfbab]

OK, I had my second go-round with the trout magnets today and thought I'd share the results.

I had about an hour to kill and decided to hit a subdivision pond I haven't fished before.
I caught around 20+ bream and 1 Bass about 1 lb, the bream were running a little better average size than the last time but I only had 3-4 that I'd call keeper size. This was a different pond, so hard to say if the presentation made much difference but I did get more bites on average today and a little better size average.

I made a few changes today:
Retrieve:
- The retrieve was a little more shaky than before, and I held the rod tip up at about 9-10 oclock instead of pointing at the bait. I think this is working better, the pond I fished today was clear enough to see the bait for part of the retrieve so I know the more aggressive retrieve isn't over-working the bait now.
- Also, I found this video on the TM Website that shows the retrieve, I hadn't seen this one before:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GTZgfCDR7w

Line:
- I still used the 2 lb Stren Gold mono but I used a 2 lb Flouro leader today for all but the first few minutes I fished.
I tied it on with the triple overhand knot that is shown on the TM website, and had good results until the very end. Something big hit it and broke off at the knot, I didn't have my drag set right so it was probably my own fault, not the knot.
- Are you guys using the overhand knot to attach leaders or something else? I usually use the Alberto for braid to Flouro on bass tackle, just trying something new with this knot today.

Anyway, it's a lot of fun so far. I haven't fished any good bream holes yet, I'm really just trying to test it out on places where I don't have a preconceived notion of what's there at this point.

Thanks,
Rob

[Alphahawk]

Originally Posted by mfbab

OK, I had my second go-round with the trout magnets today and thought I'd share the results.

I had about an hour to kill and decided to hit a subdivision pond I haven't fished before.
I caught around 20+ bream and 1 Bass about 1 lb, the bream were running a little better average size than the last time but I only had 3-4 that I'd call keeper size. This was a different pond, so hard to say if the presentation made much difference but I did get more bites on average today and a little better size average.

I made a few changes today:
Retrieve:
- The retrieve was a little more shaky than before, and I held the rod tip up at about 9-10 oclock instead of pointing at the bait. I think this is working better, the pond I fished today was clear enough to see the bait for part of the retrieve so I know the more aggressive retrieve isn't over-working the bait now.
- Also, I found this video on the TM Website that shows the retrieve, I hadn't seen this one before:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GTZgfCDR7w

Line:
- I still used the 2 lb Stren Gold mono but I used a 2 lb Flouro leader today for all but the first few minutes I fished.
I tied it on with the triple overhand knot that is shown on the TM website, and had good results until the very end. Something big hit it and broke off at the knot, I didn't have my drag set right so it was probably my own fault, not the knot.
- Are you guys using the overhand knot to attach leaders or something else? I usually use the Alberto for braid to Flouro on bass tackle, just trying something new with this knot today.

Anyway, it's a lot of fun so far. I haven't fished any good bream holes yet, I'm really just trying to test it out on places where I don't have a preconceived notion of what's there at this point.

Thanks,
Rob

I think you are doing well.....the big Gills have to be there to get on your lure....I didn't catch any big Gills today at all...did catch some big crappie though.

Regards

[MNfisher]

I use the triple overhand on lite line leaders like that. Works great.


Mike

[mfbab]

OK, I finally got into some nice Bream!!

I've done some more pond-hopping in the last few days. I've fished 3 different ponds for about an hour apiece and caught roughly 75 bream and crappie all told.
The majority were dinks, but today I hit a new pond with a lot of nice bream hanging along a riprap/grass line spawning.
I caught 18 of them quickly once I figured out the pattern, it had to be right along the grass edge but it was snot grass so you stayed fouled A LOT
I was fishing next to a guy using red worms and I'm pretty sure I caught a couple more than he did during the time we were near each other, big confidence booster for sure.

Lessons learned:
Today and one other trip, they would only hit a straight retrieve, they wouldn't touch it on the twitch whatever I tried.
So, it pays to experiment with the retrieves!!
Fast twitch, slow twitch, straight fast/ straight slow, pause occasionally, they have hit it one way or another on every pond I've fished so far save one, and it was pretty impossible to bank fish due to snotweed.
This is a fun bait!!

Also, on the leader knot, I broke off the triple overhand again the other day and switched back to the Alberto and haven't had a problem since. I'm sure I was tying it wrong or something, but fool me once.....
I've actually fished a couple of pretty clean ponds and haven't lost a jig for a long time

The Jig:
- I tied on a BPS 1/64th oz ball head jig in chartreuse just to try it out and have fished with it for the last couple of trips. It's getting pretty much the same amount of action I was getting on the TM dart head so that is good to know.

Anyway, I hope some of y'all are finding a few fish.
I'm looking for some bigger fish to be moving up with the full moon cycle, May 4th!!

Thx,
Rob

[Alphahawk]

Originally Posted by mfbab

OK, I finally got into some nice Bream!!

I've done some more pond-hopping in the last few days. I've fished 3 different ponds for about an hour apiece and caught roughly 75 bream and crappie all told.
The majority were dinks, but today I hit a new pond with a lot of nice bream hanging along a riprap/grass line spawning.
I caught 18 of them quickly once I figured out the pattern, it had to be right along the grass edge but it was snot grass so you stayed fouled A LOT
I was fishing next to a guy using red worms and I'm pretty sure I caught a couple more than he did during the time we were near each other, big confidence booster for sure.

Lessons learned:
Today and one other trip, they would only hit a straight retrieve, they wouldn't touch it on the twitch whatever I tried.
So, it pays to experiment with the retrieves!!
Fast twitch, slow twitch, straight fast/ straight slow, pause occasionally, they have hit it one way or another on every pond I've fished so far save one, and it was pretty impossible to bank fish due to snotweed.
This is a fun bait!!

Also, on the leader knot, I broke off the triple overhand again the other day and switched back to the Alberto and haven't had a problem since. I'm sure I was tying it wrong or something, but fool me once.....
I've actually fished a couple of pretty clean ponds and haven't lost a jig for a long time

The Jig:
- I tied on a BPS 1/64th oz ball head jig in chartreuse just to try it out and have fished with it for the last couple of trips. It's getting pretty much the same amount of action I was getting on the TM dart head so that is good to know.

Anyway, I hope some of y'all are finding a few fish.
I'm looking for some bigger fish to be moving up with the full moon cycle, May 4th!!

Thx,
Rob

Sounds like you have it down. I got some decent ones today...but like you am hoping the full moon opens it all up.

Regards

[mfbab]

Yep. That's one of the reasons I'm trying to hit a bunch of new places right now, I want to have a nice little milk run put together in a week or two
I think the better fish are there in a few of the places I've hit, just not up on the bank, but they will be soon....I hope