It's the Terrible at Fishing radio show on Gold
Country Radio. Here's your fishing expert and
host, Michael Ruffino. Welcome back Terrible
at Fishing, everybody. I hope you had a very
good week. We've had pretty good weather this
week. The ice on the lakes are a little... sketchy.
We've had a little bit of snow this week but
definitely take a spud bar out with you which
is basically a metal stick that you know pull
that you're able to punch in front of you to
make sure that that ice is safe. Please be careful
especially around the edges of the lake. I mean
if you go out ice fishing right now you're probably...
fall through the water in the shallow part before
you get on some safe ice, but I don't know if
I'm too big for what this is calling safe ice
right at the moment, but the rivers are doing
well, and if you want some warm water fishing,
go over to Bonanza in the hot springs in the
Springs Park there right in the middle of Bonanza.
That water is nice and warm, so it is really
a good place to catch some panfish and some bass
right now. So that's over in Bonanza in the spring
park. You'd be surprised. You really would be
surprised. They've got a little dam right there
that's got a deep part right there. You could
probably pick up a few fish pretty easily over
there. As for the other rivers, they're just
not open yet. Not until next month, I think,
but we'll get to it. We're going to be Don't
forget about the fly -fishing meeting. Fly -fishing
means second Tuesday every month over at the
Waffle Hut at seven o 'clock in the evening.
And it's a great club. You don't have to join
to come to the meeting and check it out. But
you'll like the people in it. And they've got
a huge, you know how many we got in that club,
maybe 75 people. I mean, it's pretty big. It
is pretty big. We serve refreshments there. If
you want to come a little early and order a meal,
have at it. I was at the World of Arki this last
week at the Reptiles. I think it's third Tuesday.
Every month they bring in animals and it's free.
the world of archi and it's over on main street
11 11 main street and i just love this this this
week i had this red tail boa really big guy i
called him snoop because he was he liked to rap
uh so snoop was i mean he was he even put my
hat on i had a cap baseball cap and he got his
head underneath my cap and then in my cap and
then i took my cap off and it was around his
body Snoop. Yeah, I didn't see a P. Diddy. Oh
my goodness. All right, now I've been making
baits. So that's been fun. Working on my spring
collection and cribbage boards. You can buy my
stuff over at World of Archive. I think, you
know, my mom loved cribbage. I don't know how
many people here, you know, listening likes cribbage,
but cribbage is fun and making the boards is,
well, it's addicting. It's all there is to it.
Making a cribbage board is just very addicting.
You could do it in so many shapes and sizes.
I use hardwoods and it's just fun. It's just
fun. I think I made 20. I know, it's crazy. I
need to go to Cribbage Anonymous. Do they have
such a thing? Alright, well, let's get on to
fishing. The weather is improving, and that is
really, really good. we'll be able to hit some
of these rivers like, well, you know, like Lost
River. Lost River does fish very well and it
does, it's doing real good. Go to Bonanza. Give
it a shot. I did it. Although I got frostbite,
it was negative 10 degrees. So I suggest you
do it when it's a little bit warmer. So, but
we've got, I know it's raining today and tomorrow
and... But Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, you know,
we look like we've got really good weather coming
around. Monday and Tuesday, no clouds, sunshine,
high 60s, maybe even 70 degrees. We're talking
a pretty nice two days there. And then, you know,
we get some wind and some overcast in the middle
of the week. But Monday and Tuesday look like
really good days to go out there and start fishing
again. So, hopefully, in your off -season, you've
re -spooled your reels and you've cleaned everything
up, organized your boxes. Yeah, that's what I
should have done. These are things that we should
do. We still have time. We still got time to
do it. As for fishing line, you know, I prefer,
you know, we all sort of have our favorites,
you know, some people have, you know, they want
to go with Berkeley and Berkeley can make some
pretty good line. Me, I'm a P -line guy. I mean,
P -line... has been very reliable for me and
I love their fluorocarbon. So on my light rods,
I use pure fluorocarbon on my light rods. And
a light rod is what we use for trout, for light
tackle fishing. And P -Line, it makes a really
good fluorocarbon. Fluorocarbon, by the way,
has very little, if any, stretch to it. So when
you hook your fish, you can set the hook more
reliably than you would with monofilament. Monofilament
stretches. It's stretchy and the fish can actually
pull on it and create slack and spit out the
hook where fluorocarbon, as long as that relies
upon us, as long as we keep that line tight,
we got that fish on line and are able to land
it. Another cool thing about fluorocarbon, fluorocarbon
has the same refractive qualities as water. And
so, when it enters the water, it disappears.
It's like magic! It disappears! And that's the
fun about Floral. Floral, in the water, is invisible.
And so now your lure, or bait, or spinner, or
whatever it is, looks like it's just sitting
there, taunting the fish. Other lines, like monofilament
or even braid, the fish see it. And they kind
of learn. Fish do learn, especially bass. Bass
are smart fish. Trout, not so much. Trout, not
so much. Not too bright. But let's say I do use
braid on my heavier rods, but I put a leader
on it. Now, what's a leader? I didn't understand
this when I started taking fishing seriously.
You know, when you're a kid, you just throw on
some monofilament and you throw it out there
or whatever else. I mean, you're just happy to
have a hook on a line. I mean, we'd put it on
a braided rope and pretend we would catch something.
But a leader is a line tied onto a line. This
is something, it's a special knot I do have a
video on my YouTube channel that shows you how
to tie this knot, although if you just do a Google
search on leader knots, you'll see several different
types. But one's called a blood knot, I think
it's called, and that's the one I use. Not because
it makes you bloody. I don't know why they call
it that, but you add this line, you tie it onto
your other line, your braid line. Now, The reason
you do that is that you're going to tie on fluorocarbon
because we still want strength on our line, and
we're going to tie on a thicker fluorocarbon,
a higher test, onto our braid. Now, I have a
50 pound, you know, braid on my heavy, my super
heavy rod. And that extra heavy rod has that
and 60 pound fluorocarbon as the leader. And
don't worry, this knot is actually just a little
bit thicker than the line itself, so it still
flows through your guides. You'll hear it, though.
You'll actually hear it go through your guides.
You know, it's like, and you're like, ah, and
it probably does inhibit cast a little bit. So
put only about five feet of fluorocarbon on your
line. This way you can have the knot outside
of the end guide and you can still cast it a
mile. And for five feet, the fish have an invisible
connection. You have an invisible connection
to your bait or your lure. And that's enough
to not scare the fish away. And that's what a
leader is. A leader If you use a liter on line
that fish can see, now, obviously, if you're
running pure fluorocarbon, you don't need that.
But, I will tell you something, and you're probably
asking yourself in a second, why don't you just
use all -fluoro? Well, the reason being is that
fluorocarbon has a memory to it, and I tried
it once. And fluorocar, when you take it off
the spool, it's like a spring. It just remembers
the turn of the spool, and it just remembers
that. So, it was so hard. So, somebody told me,
heat it up. So, I took a hair dryer to it, and
that didn't work. Then I saw somebody say, well,
put it in hot water. So, I put it in hot water
and I tried to spool my reel with it that way.
It didn't work. The problem about heavy fluorocarbon,
it is like a thick spring. Once the memory gets
in it, the memory is in it. So, that's why you're
only going to cut off five feet of it or six
feet. Make a knot and voila. be good to go. And
this way you don't have to worry about that kind
of spring that is shrinking up on you like that
and popping off your spool. As for the braided
line, the braided line has zero stretch and actually
holds a knot the best. Fluorocarbon holds a knot
really well, too. So, Bray DeFluoro is Just,
you know, that's just awesome. Braid line casts
farther, too. It's a smaller diameter, so you're
going to have a lot more on your reel than you
would if you had monofilament or floral. Braid
line has a much smaller diameter, and personally,
you don't get anything more than four strands.
I have used 8 strand, 12 strands, you know, and
they make it sound like the more fibers within
it, the stronger it is. Well, that's not what
I have found out. I've used 12 strands and stuff
like that and they just break and it drives you
nuts because when you're throwing a heavy, expensive
bait, some of my baits are 50 bucks. and you
throw them out there. The last thing you wanted
it to do is to fly away from you forever. It's
like, wow, that was a good cast and then you
notice that your line slack. It just flew away.
P -Line makes a really good, well, quite a few
companies make a very good four strand braid.
and you'll see braid come in lots of different
colors too. That's something interesting. So
you're going to put a leader on it, so don't
worry about it, but if you want to do a lot of
sight fishing, you can get a bright chartreuse
line and you can see where that line is landing
and sort of keep an eye on it. I kind of use
moss green almost all the time. Moss Green is,
you know, I still see it a little bit, but it
kind of sort of blends in with the water. And
I kind of like that. So, but those, you know,
those are some of the different fishing lines
that we want to spool our reels with. Now, we're
going to end this segment and we're going to
go into how to put line on a reel properly. I
know. I didn't know there was a good way and
a bad way when I first started. So be right back
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locally and beyond. All right, welcome back to
Terrible at Fishing. We're talking about fishing
line and spooling, spooling. Alright. Now, most
fishermen, they use a spinning reel. Yep, that's
true. It's the easiest. Well, that and a spin
caster. You put the line on a spin caster the
same as you do a spinning reel. So, just FYI.
The trick to putting line on a a fishing reel
is to avoid line twist. Have you ever bought
a, you know, a really, you know, a store bought
setup and then when you cast it all that line
just sort of got tangled up, you know, just fell
off the spool? That was not done right. I have
had fishing stores or tackle stores spool a reel
for me. not often because I do it right. And
what they'll do is they'll take a spool and they've
got it on a big spool of line and it's facing
your spinning reel. And they wind that spinning
reel and it's pulling that line off of the spool.
And yeah, it looks like it's working, but it's
not. What ends up happening is that with the
spool of line rolling towards the spinning reel.
I hope this is making sense. It's tough to do
it on the radio. It's coming off the spool and
then it's winding onto your spinning reel differently.
And so you're creating line twist. So when you
cast it, it's going to just explode on you, and
your line's gonna twist up, it's gonna knot up
on you, it will not flow through your guides,
you're gonna really impede your casting, and
it probably just will frustrate you the proper
way. Okay, so you're not gonna have the spool
of line roll towards your spinning reel. Does
that make sense? It's just not going to roll
towards your spinning reel. You're going to take
that spool and you're going to take the side
of it is going to face your spinning reel. The
side of it is going to face the spinning reel,
like the face of it. And you want it to come
off of that spool the same curvature you want
it to go on to your spinning reel. So it's going
to just, you know, it's going to come off, you
know, sideways off of the spool and your spinning
reel is going to spool it up. By doing this,
you're going to maintain the memory and you're
not going to have a line twist to it. So I hope
this is making sense on the radio. So the flat
side of the spool, or the spool of new fishing
line, is going to face your spinning reel. And
then you're going to put it on your spinning
reel. It's going to fall off that new spool off
the side of it. This is the way you do a spinning
reel spooling. So if you do this, you will have
probably the best cast that you will ever have.
So if you put braided line on it, you're going
to cast further. It's just the way it is. It
just flies through your guides and flies off
of it. And you put more line on it because it's
smaller diameter. And if you use braid, then
don't forget to put a leader on it. So you could
do that. Now, I go pure fluorocarbon when I'm
doing my lightweight stuff, which is four pounds,
maybe six, but four pounds test or two pound
test. And that casts really, really far. But
I can go pure fluorocarbon without worrying about
that memory on it. But if you do this, if you
do your spinning reel this way, remember the...
the flat side of that new spool of line is going
to face your spinning reel and it's going to
just come off of it and then as you reel it up,
reel it onto your reel. Now, bait casters. Okay,
I'm a big bait caster guy. I mean, nine out of
ten of my rods are bait casters. So, a bait caster
That one you're going to take off of a spool
of line They you know it's going to roll towards
your your bait caster so you've got two spools
that are going to face each other and they're
going to Just feed one off of the other. It's
the easiest Okay, it's the easiest to to spool
a bait caster It's really really really easy.
You don't have to worry about it. It's sideways
and whatnot When you do this you want to create
a little bit of tension not a lot of tension
Not a lot of tension a little bit of tension.
All right, I Typically will feed it through the
first guide on my rod I have some broken rods,
so I have a broken rod and I'll put the line
on the end of that rod through one guide and
that allows that line to come onto my spool in
a nice even way and I can pinch it. Just pinch
it a little bit and I create a little bit of
tension while it is feeding onto my reels. If
you do that, you'll actually be able to get a
really good feed onto it. You'll be able to use
it reliably this year. That's the way you do
it. Now, a lot of people, they don't know how
to store their rods. They really do tighten it
up and maybe even bow their rod. but you don't
need to do that. If you notice on the side of
a spinning reel, there's a little bit of a nipple
on the side of it. When you store your stuff,
that line's not going to go through all your
guides. It's just going to come all the way down
to your reel and that little nipple that is on
the side of your spool, you're just going to
put that string around it, and that holds your
string. Now, there is something that this year,
if you buy my bigger baits, you'll see that I'm
giving away free with my baits. It is a bait
cover. It's really thick vinyl with velcro. And
when I'm fishing or even storing or putting it
in my car or whatever, these things fold over
the rod, you know, the shaft, or properly name
the blank. And then it envelops the bait. If
I keep a bait on my rod, which is fun to do,
because it's all ready to go next time. I put,
I fold it over and it velcros around it. It protects
me and my, my bait and my other rods from being
entangled with each other. And I just really
stroke good hooks. I just touch it and it'll,
it'll pierce me. So a bait envelope, I got a
bait keeper. I think it's probably a bait keeper
it's called. I don't know. It's just a big, it's
just a plastic. a thick vinyl plastic envelope
that is open and then closes with Velcro around
it and boom you got yourself a pretty cool way
of keeping your baits from, you know, sticking
somebody and then tangling up with your other
rods. I think I shared something with you guys
one time where There's this app I use called
Fishteki, and Fishteki, yeah, Fishteki, it's
a free app, F -I -S -H -T -E -C -H -Y, and Fishteki
will measure your fish, measure the girth of
it, the length of it, and weigh it with a picture.
This is probably the coolest form of AI I have
ever seen in my life. You buy these little balls
and they're called proof balls and you get two
of them and they're 1 .4 inch orange balls and
I got these on Amazon and these are called Think
you look it up under fly techie. I Don't know
why it's different The apps called fish techie
the proof ball is called fly techie and all you
do if you came to the ice fishing Derby You saw
me use it It was so much easier I just put the
ball next to every fish took a picture and it
and it weighed it measured it and boom boom boom
I just put people's names on it and it was just
so easy So easy to do. Fish techie is one of
the coolest things. It's about 96 % or so accurate.
So for the most part, I mean, it's awesome. It
really is a really cool thing. There's so many
different ways. I mean, normally we shock the
fish. So typically, I always catch and release.
So here I've got this big fish. And first I gotta
remove the hook. So he's out of the water while
I'm removing the hook. Then I'm measuring it,
and then I'm weighing it. There's a lot of shock
to the fish. Well, this way, all I got to do
is lay him down, put a ball next to him, take
a picture, boom, done deal. And then I can put
him back in the water. That is a very cool thing.
It creates better survivorship for the fish.
And then it also Well, it's just a lot easier
and you got a picture of it and it's just cooler
I just think fish techie is one of the cooler
Gadgets, you know that I mean, it's a free app
But I mean the ball costs, you know a few bucks,
but you know, they give you two of them mine
I keep one on my keychain and then you know ones
in the box above my head here, you know, and
it's little proof ball box. It's fun to watch
it do its job too. It really is. It's going to
be fun to get back out on the water this year.
I was beached for pretty much the whole ice fishing
season. I'm looking forward to getting back out
on the water and doing some river fishing, learning
how to fly fish. That's going to be exciting.
Something I've only done once. It was like 1989.
It was a long time ago. I'm old. I'm old! Anyway,
I want to thank you guys for tuning in to the
show this week. Visit all the new sponsors on
the channel. Supporting Community Radio. World
of Arki is a great family fun center. It's really
a neat place. And then when they get the animals
in there and stuff, it is so cool to have. That
big old boa was massaging my neck. I don't think
it meant to massage my neck, but it felt pretty
good. Take care, everybody. Tight lines, and
we'll see you guys out on the rivers. That was
terrible at fishing the radio show with fishing
expert Michael Ruffino Check out terrible at
fishing on YouTube and tune in next week for
the next episode and more great fishing tips
terrible at fishing Fridays at 7 p .m.. On gold
country radio