If you are interested in fishing, you are definitely going to need a good pair of polarized sunglasses, such as Oakley Straight Jacket Sunglasses. Other good sunglasses are Costa 580 Triple Tail sunglasses and Smith Passage Polarized sunglasses. Polarized sunglasses reduce the glare from the water’s surface as well as help you to see fish better when sight fishing. Especially if you are fly fishing, being able to see the fish that you cast to is a huge advantage. You will be able to cast your dry fly right above the fish which will help you to pinpoint your dry fly or float. If you are bass fishing during the spawn, you will often be sight fishing as well. Lots of the time you can see big spawning females sitting on beds. Good polarized fishing sunglasses are a must have when bass fishing in a situation like this.

I have found one of the best places to order polarized sunglasses online is modasunglass.com. This is a great website to buy wholesale sunglasses so you can make sure that you are getting the best deal.

Bass Fishing Rods and Reels

(This article was originally posted on the fishing pictures and forums community)

A good rod and reel is crucial when bass fishing. A good rod and reel will help you to properly present your bait as well as hook into more fish. A good rod and reel will also help you to land more fish that you hook into. A good rod and reel can often mean the difference between landing your lunker bass and loosing it forever.

My rod and reel of choice is the bass pro extreme combo. I do a lot of fishing in which I slowly creep plastic worms and tubes across the bottom of lakes and rivers, and when I got my Bass Pro Shops Extreme Rod and Reel Spinning Combo the fishing immediately got easier and I began to hook into and land more fish. The Bass Pro Shops Extreme Rod and Reel Spin Fishing Combo is truly a fun and effective rod to fish. If you’re looking for a good bass fishing setup for a good value than the Bass Pro Shops Extreme Rod and Reel Spinning Combo is for you.

The rod is very stiff and strong. You need a stiff rod to get a good hook set. Especially if you fishing weedless and don’t have a prominent exposed hook than you will need a stiff rod to make sure that you get good hook penetration. The Bass Pro Shops Extreme Rod is also strong enough that it can handle large bass. The rod performs great when battling a lunker and is also strong enough to lift the big one up and out of the water onto the boat or on shore.

The Bass Pro Shops Extreme Rod has great feel and sensitivity. When dragging plastic lures across the bottom of shallow coves I like to slowly crawl my bait along the bottom. I like to feel the bait tapping along the bottom. And I need to be able to feel the bass pick up my bait. Wait just a second or two for the bass to have a firm grip on the bait and then set that hook!

The Bass Pro Shops Extreme Rod also casts great. I can cast far and accurately. I am able to pinpoint my casts right along the cattails or make an extremely long cast to cover an entire cove.

The reel is very smooth and has a great drag. The large diameter spool enhances casting distance and retrieve speed while reducing line twists. The Extreme Reel also has PowerLock instant anti-reverse so that you will get solid hook sets. The reel is strong enough to handle any bass.

I would recommend the Bass Pro Shops Extreme Rod and Reel Spinning Combo to any bass angler. The rod is available online at Bass Pro Shops… see if you can find any good deals via paid search.

Post by Jeff at Gambling Online

Water in our ecosystem has gone from low visibility to extremely clear. With this change of environment the angler must evolve in his presentation to produce consistently. This fishing article will talk you through a very effective way to meet these demands for sunny conditions with spooky fish.

Hello all: I consider it a privilege to be a member of your fishing community and pass on ideas and knowledge to everyone. Most of my articles talk about products which I believe will make you a better angler. Some I sell and some I find of a quality level worth my endorsement. My goal is to always serve the community and enrich your fishing experience.

Now is the time to move to the next generation of presentations. If you find yourself behind the pack when it comes to putting fish in the cooler, a system of planer boards will improve your learning curve.

Allow me to outline and give details of several options in planer board fishing. This will provide some ideas you may want try in the upcoming season. I highly recommend them.

Equipment for getting started

While there is some expenses involved the rewards will be great. Initially two boards will get you going. Expect to pay between $25 and $35 each for individual board with many more or less expensive choices. I recommend doing some searches online to see what you can come up with. I will give details on my first choice and then offer some others.

There was a time when long lines with weight were the standard for getting the baits well behind the boat. This is a system of inline weight attached to the line about four feet ahead of the bait. By changing the weight size you will raise or lower the spoon or bait in the water column.

The function of a planer board is to increase your odds by moving the bait off to the side of the boat. By presenting lures outside of the boat’s path in undisturbed water you will find them more likely to bite. Each board is made in a way that when trolled behind the boat it will move to left or right of your travel path. Some boards, like the Church Tackle TX 22, are reversible allowing you to run them left or right.

Rigging is simple. After you have let out the line to the distance you would like, attach the board with the clip provided by the manufacturer. Once the board is attached lower the board into the water allowing it to run off to the side of the boat. When the fish strikes you may do one of two things. Do not release the board just reel the board to the rod tip and hand release it. Then finish reeling in your fish. A second option is to release the board, which slides down the line toward the inline weight and stops. The board is reeled in with the fish and the fish is netted.

Up to now we have talked about individual boards that go on each line. You can also go with a large board towed on each side of the boat pulled by a heavy monofilament line. The line is let out the same as before and then attached with a release to the heavy mono line to the large board. As you let out additional line the release will slide down the mono toward the board. You may stop the release any time along the way to the large board. When the fish strikes the line pulls free of the release and the fish is reeled in. Then the line is reset and attached to tow line again. The draw back of this system is it requires a tall mast to pull the large boards and is not transferable boat to boat. The advantage to individual boards is less cost and I find them more efficient in setting line and cranking in fish when on a hot bite. Planer boards are a great technology and I highly recommend them.

Would you like to learn how to use a downrigger? The use of a downrigger is called trolling and it is one of the most effective ways to catch fish. Trolling gives you many advantages, since the bait is at the precise depth of the fish and modern technology such as fish counters combine to give you a no-fail fishing method. A downrigger is a braided wire hung off the end of your boat, and a heavy weight is hung off the end. The downrigger can be lowered to a certain depth, and a fishing line is hooked to a release mechanism. When a fish bites, the line is released and you are set to reel in your catch. More expensive downriggers are equipped with precise counters to see at what depth the weight is.
    
The trick to using a downrigger is to have the right amount of tension on the line. As you release the downrigger behind your boat, the line will tend to balloon slightly. Although this is normal, you don’t want it to be excessive. The key is to have enough slack to avoid the tension pulling the line from the release prematurely, but having enough tension to realize it when you get a bite; this will take some practice.

Since the line balloons while trolling, when a fish bites there is momentary slack in the line. This can be compensated for by using a very light rod, and making a bend in it while the line is attached to the release. When there is a bite, the rod springs up, and you know right away that you’ve caught something. A Scotty release system is helpful when down rigging. When attached, and tension is placed on the line as just mentioned, the release snap is pointed upwards, but when released it points down and causes the rod tip to wiggle. This is also helpful if a small fish not strong enough to trigger the release mechanism is caught on your line.
 
You want your leader line close enough to the weight so that when it passes the fish, they don’t lose interest by the time your lure gets there. A good rule of thumb is not to fish more then 15 ft. behind your weight.
     
Six to eight pounds for the weight is typical for freshwater fishing with moderate depth, while a ten pound weight on the downrigger is used for saltwater fishing. Although this weight may look impressive, you must remember that there is never any weight on the actual rod, so don’t be afraid to use a larger weight to get you down to the depth you want. When picking out a weight, there are several types and shapes. Lead or cast iron is the most popular material, and there are shapes ranging from simple round weights to fish shaped and torpedo shaped with fins. If you are attaching the line to the release mechanism built into the wire downrigger, get a weight with fins so it will not spin and tangle your line.
     
The use of downriggers allows the use of very light rods and lines. Light lines make sense so that ballooning out and drag is minimized. High-retrieve reels are preferable for downriggers, and get your lure up fast even when it is deep. A high-speed reel can keep up with a downrigger without a lot of drag and tangling.
    
Electronic fish-finders, such as the hawkeye, allow you to pinpoint the location of schools of fish, and some even differentiate between baitfish and game fish. With fishfinders, fishing is no longer a gamble. Some monitors show temperature differences in the water, and where there is an increase it is shown as a line on the screen. Baitfish is usually found on either side of this, and where there are baitfishes there are game fish. Another method is to set the transducer to continuously show the downrigger on your screen, but when using a lot of equipment, this can become cumbersome and you won’t be able to view your lure.
     
When it comes to actually shopping for your downrigger, you have to cater to the size of your boat. Smaller boats will be better off with a downrigger with an arm length of 20 to 24 inches, while larger boats will require 30 to 48 inches. If you can afford it, there are also electrical downriggers available, which is nice when you only have to push one button to bring up your weight. However, these can be a nuisance on smaller boats, so you might have to go with a manual one if you don’t have the space. Mounting position also has a lot to do with the downrigger you should purchase. If you can mount the downrigger on the stern or on the side, close enough to the stern, 24 to 30 inches should be perfect. If mounted on the side more then a few feet away from the stern, you might want to consider a downrigger with an arm length of up to 48 inches. This is so that when the boat turns, the wire doesn’t scrape the side or the front of the boat, as a short-arm downrigger mounted near the front will do.
    
If you are just starting out with downriggers, you might want to try using paid search to find a charter boat and seeing first-hand how it’s all done. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, and then go out and catch your own!

The title of this true episode is the salmon of a lifetime but before I describe it some background information might be useful. Fishing has to be the most unfair sport of all for in almost every other sport the sportsman has to serve a long apprenticeship before he can hope to try for the greatest prize of all. In angling it really is a gamble, the chance of the ultimate prize can come right at the very beginning of a career when the fisherman is far too inexperienced to cope with what faces him. Almost always the ultimate prize that every fisherman dreams of is a huge fish, a dream it must be said that is all too rarely fulfilled for the simple reason that huge fish are, by their nature, rare. Here in Ireland we have only one species of salmon, the Atlantic salmon. Compared to king salmon and some other breeds Atlantic salmon are in general relatively small and due to cyclical changes big fish have become rarer over the last fifty years or so. These days a nice salmon would weigh 10lbs, a good fish 15lbs and for most anglers a 20lb salmon would be the fish of a lifetime, in fact few Irish anglers will ever catch a salmon of this weight. A fish of 30lbs or slightly more might turn up once in five years and when they do they make national news. Some, usually rivers are noted for producing large salmon but in theory wherever salmon run and regardless of the size of the river a very big salmon could turn up at anytime. There are little mountain streams where the run of salmon is made up entirely of grilse, fish of 3lb to 5lb but perhaps once in ten or fifteen years a salmon of 20lbs might turn up..a fish who for some unknown reason had decided to stay feeding at sea for a few extra years…Now to my story. I have been very lucky in my angling life with eight small rivers and streams all of which have runs of salmon and seatrout withing twenty miles of where I live. When I was young I was surrounded by relatives and neighbors who all fished for trout and salmon and it must be said that some of these people were none too particular by which method they extracted the fish from the rivers. One of these guys was a man of seventy one who, while still sprightly, was not the man he had been some years previously and his strength had largely deserted him. However he loved to walk along the riverbank near our home and when the opportunity presented itself he was still able to take a salmon from the river. This old fellow was the proverbial lovable rogue and his favorite fishing method was as follows. He cut a straight hazel rod about seven feet long and to one end he attached a large gaff hook. When he spotted a salmon he lay on the bank and placing the hook in position under the salmons head he drove the gaff in and lifted the fish from the water. This of course was a very brutal way of taking any kind of fish and I must hasten to add that it has been many decades since this was employed in even the wildest parts of Ireland. One evening when I was about thirteen years old I met our old friend coming home from the river. Not only was he was in a state of extreme agitation but he was soaking wet from head to toe. He blurted out his story and soon I was as excited as he was. He had been walking along the riverbank as usual and looking into a favored pool he spotted a huge salmon like shape. There had been rain a few days previously and while the river had fallen it was still slightly colored and he couldn’t really tell for sure if the shape he was looking at was a salmon or not. He decided to take a chance and wading into the water he placed his hook under where he thought the head should be and pulled the hazel rod upwards driving the home. The river exploded as a huge salmon felt the pain of the steel in its flesh and the old man could only hold his ground for a few seconds before he was pulled off balance and he was still holding onto his hazel rod when the salmon turned and snapped it in two escaping with gaff in it’s side and trailing four feet of hazel. Naturally I was beside myself with excitement and this increased further when my old friend said that together we would bring about the big fishes downfall the next morning. I had to keep this to myself as my father would have tanned my hide if he thought I was involved in a business such as this. As it turned out it was to be a very painful experience and I have a scar to this very day to prove it. We were at the river bright and early, the morning was calm, crisp and clear.. perfect. The old man needed me,for physically he would be unable to land such a salmon and in any case he was worn out from the day before. This time he was taking no chances and for insurance in case the salmon broke the rod he tied strong twine onto the hook and attached the other end to my wrist. Instructing me on what to do we searched for the salmon. The old man spotted him first. The fish was resting unseen beneath a large overhanging bank but the hazel rod still attached to him gave his position away. After final instructions I waded quietly into the river and slowly made my way towards where the salmon was lying. The only part of the fish that I could see was his tail and about a foot of his body, but his tail stunned me, a huge wide grey tail which seem so much bigger than the tails of those salmon of eight and ten pounds my father often caught. I got the hook into position and holding my breath I drew the hazel rod upwards with all the strength I could muster. For a second nothing happened, all was solid..then just as the day before the big fish came out of the water in a great shower of spray and churned up the water as I struggled to hold him with the hazel rod. The old man was jumping up and down on the bank and shouting but I couldn’t hear what he was saying…even if I could it would have made no difference. The hazel rod broke and now I was attached to the fish with the twine which was wrapped round my wrist. The river was small, twenty feet wide. The great salmon made up his mind to head upstream and soon unable to stop him and with the twine starting to cut into my wrist I was stumbling after him. I managed to follow the salmon for about ten yards before I stumbled over some stones and while I fell the fish kept going until the twine snapped. My last memory of that salmon of a lifetime is the sound of him crashing through the shallow stream at the head of the pool and splashing into the next pool and vanishing forever. My wrist was cut and bleeding badly and I still bear the scar of the encounter with that salmon to this day. The old man cried..not for my pain but for losing the greatest salmon of all our lives. Looking back through all those years and with several thousand salmon I have caught since then I’d say that fish was between thirty and forty pounds..in a river where the average is usually around 6lbs. After the salmon had spawned that year a huge spent cockfish was found dead at the side of the river..he had two wounds on his body. A great salmon who had beaten the odds twice survived and spawned successfully….what better way to end this story.

More great stories like this are available at the fishing pictures, forums and blogs community.

Tip #3: How To Fight A Strong Fish

If you hook in to a big fish whether you land it or not is going to depend on both your technique and your equipment. Also… some luck helps too. We have all had big fish wrap themselves around a rock and snap our line so luck is always a factor… just like playing poker.

The correct technique for battling a fish outdoors is to get it on the reel immediately. After you set the hook you should immediately reel in any excess line and get the fish on the reel. Your drag should be set properly and you should let the reel tire the fish out. Keep your rod tip high in the air and be patient, but know that the more quickly that you land the fish the better, if you are catch and release fishing.

Your equipment is crucial when battling large fish on fly rod. You need a reel with an exceptionally smooth drag. If you are saltwater fly fishing that I would recommend the Tibor Riptide Reel.

There are a lot of fishfinders on the market today. Which one should you get? You might want to check out the Eagle Cuda.

I recently had the opportunity of using an Eagle Cuda 300 Compact Fishfinder for a day. The Eagle Cuda is an entry-level graph, made for the average weekend fisherman. I have been using the bigger, higher resolution graphs for several years now, and I’ll be the first to admit that I was doubtful that the Cuda was going to be able to do the same job as the graphs that cost thousands of dollars, such as the Lowrance HDS 10 Fishfinder or the Humminbird 997 SI Fishfinder.

The first thing I noticed when I got on the lake is the lack of buttons on the face of the Eagle Cuda 300. I was a little disappointed, as it appeared to have very few features. But after playing around with the graph for just a few minutes, I found that was absolutely not the case! The Cuda has 90% of the features that my big graphs have, plus the Eagle Cuda Fishfinder is much, much easier to use.

After fishing most of the morning getting very comfortable with the little graph, I decided to find out if the Cuda 300 could find brush piles and schools of bait as well as my more expensive units. I trolled over to a brush pile I fish quite often, and was quite surprised. Although the Eagle Cuda doesn’t have a real high resolution, the brush and bait was really easy to find. Bait was easily distinguishable from brush, and if the angle was right, I could even see my lure on the display!

The Eagle Cuda is a good fish and depth finder for the casual angler who fishes on the weekends, and has all of the features you’ll really ever need.

The only drawbacks to the Cuda 300 for me were:

1. Small Screen, won’t be a problem for most.
2. Low resolution, but still good enough to see most of what you need to.
3. Mount is not very rigid, may cause problems in rough water.

The Eagle Cuda 300 may not have side imaging sonar, or VGA resolution, but for a graph that costs less than a pair of shoes it’ll sure get the job done!

Post by Jeff at Gambling Online Place

Do you need to get a gift for the fisherman in your life? Or are you looking for some cool new fishing gear for yourself? Here are some ideas for you:

1. Olympus Stylus Digital Camera

We are all interested in taking good fishing pictures. I know that I personally don’t want to pay hundreds of dollars to get a fish mounted, but I still want to be able to show off the hog fish that I caught to my buddies. When I catch my once in a lifetime fish I want to make sure that I capture the moment forever.

The Olympus Stylus 1050SW 10.1 MP Digital Camera with 3x Zoom and a 2.7″ LCD is about as good of a fishing camera as you will find for the money. The camera is shockproof and waterproof and costs just $199! You can take underwater fishing pictures to snap the perfect photo of the 20 inch trout with the wooly bugger in its mouth.

2. Bass Pro Shops Fishing Light

Underwater fishing lights can be extremely effective for night fishing. Quite simply, submersible lights attract bugs and minnows, and the bait fish in turn attract larger game fish. Many fishermen who fish with fishing lights at night report huge swarms of fish going wild around the light. Check out the Bass Pro Shops Submersible Fish Light. It’s a good light for the money and will attract swarms of bait fish.

3. Shurhold Gaff Hook

I don’t recommend gaffs unless you are fishing for food such as tasty tuna or mahi mahi because of the harm that they cause to fish. However, if you are running a charter fishing boat operation or are fishing for dinner than a gaff is a very effective way to land large game fish.

I recommend the Shurhold Gaff Hook because of its quality, effectiveness and price. The Shurhold fishing gaff has an extremely strong sharp hook and also has a built in spring guard for safe transportation. This is an extremely high quality gaff that can handle even the largest gamefish.

Be sure to check out the New-Mexico-Fishing site.

Something Fishermen Do That Really Annoys Me

Why do you go fishing? Do you fish for food? Do you fish for relaxation? Do you fish to get away? I know why I fish. I fish for the chance to catch something really big. I want to catch that monster fish. I want to come home with a fish story.

The last time I went fly fishing on the San Juan River in northern New Mexico I hooked into that monster. This trout must have run close to 30 inches. Now I have hooked into, and landed, some awful dang big fish on that river, but this one took the cake. This fish was far bigger and stronger than any other fish that I have run into up there.

Let me give you some quick background on fishing the San Juan before I go on. The trout up there feed on extremely small midges, so most of the time you are fishing size 22 flies on 6x tippet. So obviously, you absolutely cannot fight the fish too hard or else your line will snap or the fish will slip the hook. I know guys who have landed trout that are around 28 or 29 inches on 6x and that have gotten the fish safely back into the water, so it definitely can be done. You just need a good reel with a smooth drag, such as the Orvis and patience. Patience can be learned at the poker table.

… So back to my story: I set the hook on this monster trout and knew that it was definitely the fish of the trip, if not the fish of a lifetime. And I am out on the river for that big fish. I am out there for my fish story.

About 15 to 20 minutes into the fight some other anglers on the river started yelling at me to bring the fish in. As more time went by, my body started to ache but I demanded of myself not to give in and do something dumb that would cause me to lose this fish. I just focused on keeping my Sage Z-Axis Fly Fishing Rod tip high in the air and tiring the fish out. Not only was I having to fight cramps and fatigue, but I also found myself having to fight off other fishermen who were viciously yelling at me, “Bring it in now or you’ll kill it!”

This was extremely annoying to say the least. I was trying to fight my fish and all these annoying fishermen were harassing me causing me to lose my focus.

The sad fact is that even if you are “catch and release” fishermen, the occasional fish you catch will unfortunately parish. I read a stat that about one in ten fish you catch will die due to exhaustion or too deep of a hook set. True, you can cut down on the number of fish that die by using barbless hooks and fighting your fish quickly, however, some will die regardless. Fishing is a sport, and unfortunately there are occasionally some unintended casualties.

So if you are really that in love with fish you should take the hook off the end of your line and get out of the river. If you care that much about fish you should not be fishing, period. And you certainly should not harass other anglers who are just trying to enjoy their time out on the river.

In case you are wondering what happened the fish broke off. She wrapped herself around some debris in the water and the line snapped. I was devastated but I knew I fought my best. I didn’t rush her in at the urging or other fishermen which surely would have caused the tippet to snap. I knew I fought my best and the fish’s best just happened to be better than mine that day.

It happens.

There are a lot of great fly fishing rods on the market right now and each have their different advantages. When choosing a rod, you have to consider the species of fish that you will be pursuing, the type of water that you will be fishing as well as the price range that you can realistically afford. Here are some of my favorite models:

The G. Loomis NativeRun GLX Fly Fishing Rod is a great rod for casting out large weighted flies to salmon, pike, bass or whatever else you may be pursuing. The G. Loomis NativeRun is great for long distance casting, line control and battling feisty fish. The rods are constructed out of GLX graphite, and the rod comes with a custom reel seet and Portuguese cork for the handle.

I must say that I am very impressed with the Sage Z Axis. My rod is a four section, nine foot five weight. The rod casts great and handles fish like a gem. This rod is more fast action than my Launch which gave me a bit more casting distance. The Z Axis is also extremely light weight.

The Sage Launch is another good one. The first thing that I noticed about this rod is that I was able to mend my line much better. I do a lot of nymph fishing and I like to get extremely long drifts and cover a ton of water (you catch more fish that way). Man… I was mending like a pro with this rod. My flies were getting long, natural drifts with tight lines. The next thing that I noticed was that I could cast farther and more accurately.

This post is sponsored by Paid Search Tips and by Gambling Online Place.