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Posts: 3240
Location: Racine, Wi | Now that the water is almost cool enough to keep a sucker alive outside of a cooled livewell, I am wondering what you guys do for sucker fishing. Rods, rigs techniques?
I personally can't be to pickey with the rods yet. Many of mine have many uses. I usually have 2 out. One on a bobber behind the boat, and one either on the bottom, or half way down while I cast. I am ususally using the Maina lift off rigs for hardware, as I am not too confident in my sucker rig making capabilities yet. They seem to work good so far this year. (spring).
Also, what do you up northers do as far as running your trolling motors when dragging meat. I was talking to the Extreme One about this last week, and I never really thought about this. I am usually drifting up there and running the trolling motor to adjust position, but sometimes when moving on a spot, I might actually be trolling. I better adjust that tactic.
Good lungen,
Joel |
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Location: Minneapolis, MN | I prefer not to use the store bought rigs with crimps. Herbies and others have failed on me in the past. I used to be a big fan of lift off rigs until I saw Ralph Florio's setup. He makes his own and uses a very small bait hook and one single trebble that he slips under a rubber band which he puts around the entire body of the sucker. The trebble lies right on top of the fish near the dorsal fin where Ms. Musky doesn't see it and usually burries itself right into the top jaw of the fish. Maybe you could convince him to take a picture of this rig on a moc sucker and post it? |
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Posts: 7036
Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs | I second Luke's emotion...for that "small hook" use a little baby jig head. |
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Posts: 3240
Location: Racine, Wi | Any Pics would be great. That sounds like a cool rig. Does the rubberbanded hook stay on the sucker well? |
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Posts: 1937
Location: Black Creek, WI | Jomusky makes some awesome quick strike rigs. Just gave a talk about them at the C&R Musky Club meeting last night too!
My favorite rig for sucker fishing is a CRANKBAIT in a sucker pattern (heh heh). Nothing against sucker fishing.... I simply don't have the patience to fiddle with them and am content with artificials right to ice-up. |
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Posts: 177
Location: Germantown & Land O Lakes WI | Pete's Lift Off is a great tool and I love the Land O Lakes rig with the heavy jig for fishing deeper water. The old single hook may be easier to use, but it kills fish...no doubt |
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Posts: 239
Location: Madison, WI | Herbie rigs and Maina lift off rigs have been my two primary set ups. I started crimping my own safty pin rigs (Herbie look a likes) that have held their own. Having an assortment of various size leads allow me to choose the appropriate lenth for the sucker I am using. Easy to stagger two, one on each side for the larger suckers.
I am surprised that circle hooks have not been mentioned yet. I started experimenting with them late last year for pike on Lake Mendota. We have a 40" limit, 35"-42" pike are common. I was extremely pleased with the performance. 27#-40# wire leader with a 10/0 circle hook. Increased my hooking percentage over the quick strike rig and best of all every fish I caught was hooked perfectly in the corner of the mouth!
Advantages, less hardware on the sucker makes them look more natural. I also had fewer hang ups on logs & weeds. I will mix them into my fall arsenal for muskie in the upcoming weeks.
Anyone else have any comments on circle hooks good or bad??
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Posts: 20211
Location: oswego, il | I make my own lift off rigs. What I do is use my standard trolling leaders and I have leads made up with treble hooks on them of differet lengths and hook sizes. This way I can "custom build" my sucker rig to the size of the sucker. I usually use 2 trebles, one on top and one underneath the sucker and attach the snap to the nose of the sucker with a rubber band. I have found with suckers smaller than 14", you have to have the hook or one of the hooks on the belly of the fish. If not the drift belly up. I use at least a 1oz weight, 2oz most of the time in front of the 3ft leader. I put one just out of site and the other 10-15ft or 10ft under a bobber depending on if it's windy or not. Too much wind precludes the use of a bobber.
For rods and reels, I use my trolling rods with line counter reels. So far so good. Using 2 smaller hooks(1/0 or 2/0) I find I don't have to set the hook so hard I fly across the boat like you see on TV. |
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