Do you love big bluegill?

Gear towards technological advancement, sacrificing lost arts

My little shared insight while eating my late lunch:

I'm a scientist by trade, and we all area scientists and engineers by hobbies. Even though we may not have PhDs, masters, and BS/BA degrees, we all have capacities to learn, observed, and formulates our approaches. However, with newer advancement and technologies, we're losing the basic/fundamental foundation of what's right and wrong when it comes to fishing.

Think about it for a moment. We went from the natural process of walking/running for days, to animal based transports to get to the same destinations within hours, to automotives that only take us minutes. Yet, what's the environmental impacts from our convenient?

Now, take that, and apply to fishing. We went from natural baits, to artificial lures ranging from natural materials to synthetic, now, we're going full synthetic, utilizing artificial enhancement attractants to boost the synthetic material's effectiveness. We are at the top of the food chain. What we use to catch sport fishes and release them back into the wild will create ripple effects from the lower food chains, back to us. Even when we're using synthetic materials to catch the targeted species for food sources, we're still liable in introducing fragments of the synthetic materials into the waters. As results, we're destroying our waters that house so much supporting biota for various living organisms.

An example, where I live, anglers are teaching their kids their poor habits of using more and more synthetic materials. The infamous one is the dissolving dough, which made primarily for trouts, mimicking pellets fed to the stocked trouts by the sport fisheries. Issue arise as glitters, petroleum distillates, and synthetic chemical compounds are being ingested, digested, and assimilated by the creatures that live in and on the waters. Everyone should check out articles of what happen when aquatic and migratory creatures consume synthetic materials over time. Not a pretty picture. Try to search on articles about the worldwide floating trash islands, and their impacts on the aquacultures. Take that, and apply it to your local favorite fishing spots.

Okay, enough rambling on my side. Your question to me probably be, "So? What do you want us to do?" Easy. Time to go back to the old mother nature's provision as live baits. Do you know that synthetic materials and attractants are nothing more then overly enhanced natural chemical compounds that already exist in nature, within your live baits? Here are somethings to think about:

1. Do you know that the chemical they used to preserve "live" worms in a jar is nothing more than extracted components of extracted juice of cooked shellfishes, and rotten fish bodies? The company simply cooked the materials up, distill the juice to make it clear, remove the foul odors, and add food coloring to create attractiveness for anglers to bewildered about as they foolishly purchase the jars of products.

2. Do you know that live baits are much more effective in catching fishes than dead/dried live baits in a jar/can/container? Why? Because the body fluid secreted by the punctured victims release pheromonal enzymes and proteins that's attract the predation species. Imagine a dying live bait like a hot piping 22 toppings pizza being dropped into the room full of hungry mouths.

3. Enhancement sprays in a jar/bottle can be reproduced at costs of pennies, a bit of your time you normally spend in front of the TV, and a bit of brain power we are serious under using.

4. Do you know that by using live baits, you're promoting the preference choices of live baits for future generations of the fishes, as you program the current generations to active pursue the the natural baits of choices without bias? If you're using synthetic, synthetic materials promotes awareness, thus, causing shier bites as you utilize and reutilize the synthetic materials. We end up having to create more realistic synthetic materials to fool the fishes. Why do that? Go with the original approach..use the real thing.

Ever wonder about something like this?

If you take a handful of nightcrawlers, put them in the blender, toss in a bit of flour to make a dough, add a bit of salt and sugar, you make one heck of a multispecies fishing pellet. If you don't like handling the stinky worms, how about Yap Cheese recipe for fishing?

Ever wonder if you raise your crickets to eat cabbage, rather than fruits, they stick to high heaven, yet, the fish prefer the ones eating cabbage over the ones eating fruits 3-to-1? If you eat cabbage, girls will pick the guys that don't eat cabbage over you 3-to-1? Garlic wise, girls will pick other guys that don't eat garlic 10-to-1, yet, fishes will seek after the stinky/foul smelling live baits more so. Hm..off topic there for a moment..

Take home message is, try to teach new generations of anglers, including reintroducing yourself, back to the original recipes of successes: live baits. Raise your own, and experiment with a the renewable resources that will provide you the edges to land you fishes every time.

Now..don't let the spoon master, Bill "Musky" Modica know about your fancy of live baits over his spooning methods. He might be able to reconvert you back to his heavy metal way of thinking. Lunch break over..time to get back to work.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Leo Nguyen on April 30, 2016 at 9:15am

Over here in CA as well. Of course, 3 are live hooks. The others are just attractors using half dead hooks.

Permalink Reply by Slip Sinker on April 30, 2016 at 9:59am

…back in the 80’s and half way thru the 90’s I had a high powered bass boat and an Umco 8 tier trayed tackle box with a “basement” built in for storage. I had plastic baits in all sizes and colors by the hundreds. I liked collecting and fishing them. If they weren’t hitting I switched colors and sizes till they did. My fishing “carbon” and “plastic” footprints were high. By the time I bought snacks, drinks oil, and gas I was spending 25-30 dollars/day. luckily at the time i was fishing 1 to 2 times per week. The price to pay to fish in high powered style.

Now I fish out of a kayak and a 6hp 4 cycle OB Jon Boat... fish at least every 3 days on pocket change. I avg 2.5 gals of gas a month and no 2 cycle oil.

My plastic arsenal now is small the past 3 seasons and catching fish in a personal record setting pace. Ive learned to fish the Power Minnow with the thinnest Super Lines with just two basic colors …. Dark and light smelt patterns and have the confidence to catch most varities of fish in the BOW. Ive found GULP waxies will catch everything including Bass over 5/lbs and N.Pike over 30”.

My baits when hung up I am able to pull free with the super lines by straightening the hook in most cases… I will most rarely lose a bait to the BOW. I will also very rarely or never lose a plastic to a fish because I glue down the tails. when it becomes worn it is removed and then disposed of outside the BOW.

In the past few years I have intentionally tried to lessen my fishing footprint. Conservation has always been a stronghold in my inner fabric since gradeschool… paths in my life generally lead that way. This also carries on to the voice of the conservation of fish populations and how they are currently detrimented by outdated fish limits set by law in today's sport.

Leo brings up some great points of problems and it starts at the minimalist level… isn’t that where all problems should be solved before they become very serious issues.

For now I just don’t know how to wean myself off of these…

Permalink Reply by Leo Nguyen on April 30, 2016 at 10:09am

It's a hard choice when a habit has already imprinted upon you. But as we start to wean, we also learn valuable lessons along the way to pass onto future generations. It only takes a small ripple in the water to cause great changes.

Permalink Reply by Kelly Peterson on April 30, 2016 at 10:15am

Slip, what is that red hook with the Waxie on? Is this what you use on your drop shot rigs?

Permalink Reply by Slip Sinker on April 30, 2016 at 7:37pm

…Kelly...Matzuo Sickle #10.... i have started using these at the end of last year and can find them locally just about everywhere... even Walmart... very economical.

yes i use them on both rigs ... slip/float as well as drop/shot... they seem to do the job.

lately ive been religiously pinching the barbs down the fish release much quicker with less harm.

Permalink Reply by Slip Sinker on May 2, 2016 at 6:53am

...here's my setup for slip float