September

[Micanopy]

August was a hot one, but it is gone now. This month is when we get a few days of cooler weather. Not many mind you, but a few. The earth has wandered millions of miles through space to get us to cooler weather, it would be nice if at least one human acknowledged the effort. It is also prime time hurricane season. Little disturbances come off of the African continent, catch a ride on the trade winds and just as they get close to us, they explode into monsters. I am inland quite a bit so by the time they get to me they are mostly an annoyance.

This change in angle to the Sun also means that the temperature in the local lakes will begin to drop and that turns the fish on. They get to feeling more lively. Their little biological calendars notify them it is time to get frisky and start swallowing some stuff. I shall be ready with these.







The eyes are Flat Back Rhinestones in the 5 mm size. They sell them 1,400 or so for $8 or so. Not too shabby. They have all sorts of colors to choose from. These are neon, and they have other neon colors to choose from as well. Glue on just like a 3D eye. They sell rhinestones that have an adhesive on the back, and you apply some heat and the glue melts, and then sticks. However this glue is meant for fabrics, not solid surfaces. It has to get into the weave to stick. I made sure I was not getting that kind.

They are shaped stones, cut as if they were crystals. Multi facetted, as can be seen in the orange jig above. I daubed a dab of black paint to make a pupil. The top surface of the rhinestone is a flat circle. Perfect for adding a round pupil with ease. Of course they would be fine without it, but I wanted to see what they looked like. The paint is acryllic and I started fingering them up before they had dried. Some of the paint escaped.

Here they are under a UV light. They glow like light bulbs.




Even when viewed in natural visible light they tend to pop right out at you. Very bright and being rhinestones, they offer some shimmer as well. They glowed really well as the light faded away last night on the deck. They really stand out, even from a distance.



Adding baits to the heads yields these. I need to play around some with choosing baits in order to get better matches, but these would catch a fish. When they are biting that is. LOL



Here is the view from above, which is similar to the view from below. You can see that the stones alter the profile of the head. Making it much wider than the way the head would look with 2D eyes, or no eyes. The head retains it’s wedge shape. Hatchet head. You can see the flat surface where I aimed the black paint for the pupil. Most of my plastics are wide enough to where they will match up nicely with this widened look.

I envision these as being very visible underwater due to the UV glow aspect of the stones. I am just about finished with my experiments with eyes. Rhinestones, sequins, 2D eyes being turned into 3D eyes. I still want to print my own eyes from the computer. They would look awesome.


I did some research about trolling. Up in the great white North, they troll for salmon. There are some salmon that were introduced into the Great Lakes, and these salmon do not get large, but are tasty. Kokenee or some such silly name. Anyways these fish strike brightly colored lures. The same colors we crappie fishermen tend to use. They use spoons and harnessed objects with churning blades, and all manner of stuff. Very interesting to see how those folks have dialed in those fish.

Well they tend to employ two techniques that caught my attention. Flashers and dodgers. Flashers are metal strips that are placed in line ahead of the lure, and they twirl as they get trolled. Flashing at the fish. Calling them over from great distances, as there is a lot of water to cover.

Dodgers can also flash, but do not spin around, or twirl. They wobble back and forth as they go. The metal they are made from can be bent to impart more wobble or less. Typically, these create friction in the water and can steal away some of the play when landing a big fish, as they drag along. They make small dodgers, too. That is what I ordered.

These can be tricky to figure as everything depends on the speed at which they get trolled. Too fast and they surface, I imagine. Too slow and they just kind of swim along. I guessed and hope that the two styles I chose will work for the speeds at which I troll.

To rig up, I plan to use the poles I normally fish right next to the boat, or just under. The ones in close. I will tie on a 3 Way swivel, and attach a fairly heavy sinker to the bottom eye using a short length of heavy line. Then the third eye will get some heavy line about 18: or so in lenght, tied to the front of the dodger. Then another leader of normal line about 18” to one of my jigs.

At the proper speeds these dodgers will sway, and that will impart action to the jig. Normally trolled jigs do not swim off to one side and back again. They kind of swim in a straight line fashion. My hope is that I can use larger sized jigs, with large baits, swaggering along a few feet above the grassy bottoms to entice large crappie. Something I doubt any of them have ever seen before.

I always wondered how many trolled jigs a large crappie sees in his lifetime. On my lakes probably five or so. Hopefully mine will be the last jig he ever sees. LOL. Well I selected exotic colors……of course. They will be here sometime next week. They call them mini dodgers. I searched this site and found nothing except stories related to fishing for salmon. Maybe I am on to something good, maybe bad, but monkey see- monkey burn fingers has always been my style.