I noticed that my swimmer gets tangled a lot on my leader. But at night its hard to tell whether its tangled or not causing me to waste a lot of time. I'll assume that my lure is moving properly on the retrieve and when it gets close its all tangled up.
In my 1st year here striper fishing I have caught 7 thus far and none have been hooked by the trailer hook. So I don't think taking the trailer hook off will change the lures catch ability but it may change the way it swims? Maybe better / worse?
But in any case I can feel the action of my plugs and typically when one is fouled on the leader it feels heavier...like a dead weight with no action so I reel that in fast. I also have a couple plugs that seem to foul more than others so I have been experimenting with changing the angle in which I cast them.
When I fish freshwater 90% of the time I use top water plugs. When I do get a tangle for whatever reason I fish it slower than normal. It is a reaction lure, fish it slow and you will still catch fish. A dying fish doesn't swim a straight line. Last night I was fishing and got 3 hook ups when fishing a tangled lure. Good luck..:gob_icon_cheers:
I noticed that my swimmer gets tangled a lot on my leader. But at night its hard to tell whether its tangled or not causing me to waste a lot of time. I'll assume that my lure is moving properly on the retrieve and when it gets close its all tangled up.
Try using a snap swivel on the metal lip swimmers and dont fire it as hard as you can. Toss it with an overhead cast not a snap cast. Retrieve slow. You can feel whether you have tangled it on the front treble by the feel after swimming the plug properly a few times as opposed to dragging it.
Danny's and many other wood plugs aren't really aerodynamic. They dont really cast that far, but with a good setup and braid and not too much head wind you should be able to get a decent cast. Sometimes you have to wade out a bit and cast other times the fish are in close.
Excerp Most often I would use it for close-in infighting tight in heavy cover - jetties, sand bars, weed beds, shellfish beds, rock beds, piling, piers, sunken barges, wrecks - anything and everything that could hold a bass by day. If I had confidence a bass was there, repeatedly waking Danny's Surface Swimmer as close as possible practically touching the cover would eventually raise a fin for me. Even after several dozen repeated casts over the same piece of cover, I had high confidence that the next cast could be the one when Danny's Surface Swimmer Jr. would raise a bass to the top. Whether the plug just became irritating after a while or what, it worked that way. Persistence on my part as a plugger was paramount to success with this plug for me. Almost every piece of cover could and would have bass sulking on it, and it was just a matter of not giving up casting too soon.
When i know its messed up, i reelin quick until it breaks the surface and give a quick jerk sending it flying and then pause for a fewseconds. this usually gets the leader out of the treble. i then continue reeling and see if its swimming correctly. and i slammed one doing this earlier in the season. it was pretty funny. it went from DAMN IT to YES very quickly
Most of my swimmers seem to be ok with fouling. If I do run into one that is a problem I will try feathering it. Thanks Sudsy.
I do do the jerk it when one is tangled. I don't try to fish it slow as one poster posted. Well to make it look like a wounded prey. As by doing this you now have your line wrapped around a hook and just asking for a break off if you get a large fish or even just one with sharp teeth. This has happened with a musky a while back and have vowed not to do it again. Also you have your leader chaffing against the hook.
I had the same issue but I ended up taking the front treble (I know what your thinking, that's where they hit it) but it also has a big treble in the middle of the plug and the single hook trailer at end...Also when you fish those things (at least for me) I always fish them ssssslllllllooooooowwww as hell and that seems to do the trick...Almost like a popper, and hardly ever under the surface...
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