Skunked Again..

[Kawabuggy]

Went fishing last night. Noticed that when I cast, as the line was feeding out, I heard and felt a small "thump" even before the lure hit the water.. As I am reeling in, I see a large rat nest of tangled braid approaching my rod.. No biggy, cut it out and move on. How did that happen with braid?

I always use a mono leader & a swivel with my braid. I re-rig and start fishing again. Later on I get the tell tale "tap,tap,tap" on my line.. I hesitate just a moment to reel up the slack, and then pull sharply to the right at about 9 O'clock to set the hook. The line immediately goes slack.. I reel in my braid and find a clean cut. It's not frayed, or stretched, just a clean cut like it was cut with a knife. I don't know what could have cut it like that..

I then re-rig again, using another swivel and another leader. Weightless Senko. About my 3rd cast, I am watching the slack line laying on the water feed out as the Senko slowly sinks. I see a momentary pause, like it has hit bottom, and then it immediately starts feeding out much faster than before. I flip the bail, reel up the slack and pull back sharply on the rod to set the hook-and it immediately goes slack. I crank in the line and find that the mono leader is severed. I started with an 18" leader, but wound up with 10". At least I was able to keep my swivel this time.

Later in the evening I switched to top water as I could see several hits occurring on the surface, but had no luck at all that way using a Pop-R. I also tried a crank-bait (Rapala X-Rap) and no luck that way either. I did notice that a small school of bass (6-8") would follow the lure, but would not attack it. They would chase it right back to the shore line, and then stop and watch it.

If I have another outing where I don't catch something, I am going to hire a guide just to make sure I am not jinxed.

I have read here that it takes confidence to catch fish.. I am over-flowing with confidence that if something can go wrong-IT WILL! I try to have an optimistic outlook on life, but what that famous person said "if anything can go wrong, it will" was specifically talking about me. I am the guy that if you want to know which lane at the grocery store will be the slowest-just stand behind me. If someone is going to get rear ended sitting at a red light-it will always be me. I have been rear ended 7 times since moving to Houston. I play the lottery and buy 20 quick picks at a time. One day my friend was looking at my tickets with me and he noticed that out of 20 tickets, I did not have a SINGLE winning number in any line, on any ticket. He commented that it was almost impossible (statistically) that I would not have a single number right. I played again the next week, and the same thing happened. I pulled some of my old tickets and reviewed them, and finally found I had 1 number right back in June of 2005. What are the odds that I have not had a single number right in 3 years....?

How many fish will have to swim around with my worm and hook, and possibly a swivel and some braid, hanging from their mouths before I actually land one?

Live bait is my next plan. I am going to see what I can accomplish "cheating". At least being able to honestly say I caught a fish will justify what I have spent on the bait-monkey. If that does not work, I will resort to carrying my rifle as I did when I was young. Nothing like squirrel cut-bait.. Works every time. It is DEFINITELY something the fish have not seen before.

[leroy]

This is why it's called fishing not catching. I have no idea what is happening to your line. I have no idea how its becoming severed like that unless your fishing somewhere full of RAZOR sharp rocks.

[bassfisher02]

First of all, something will always go wrong if you think it will. Stop with the pesimistic nonsense and forget the past. Sh*tty things happen to everyone all the time. Fishing is fishing because its not catching, resorting to live bait because you cant catch anything on artificial bait is in a sense giving up. I went from consitently catching 4lb+ bass every outting to barely catching anything over 2lbs now since I've moved to Tallahassee. I havent caught a bass close to 4lbs in almost 2 years, I barely have anywhere to fish up here without a boat... but I'm still fishing...

Now, are there pike in this lake? Any other fish with sharp teeth? If so that may have been the problem for the leader cut. The braid I'm certain was cut on something underwater very sharp, since it was so far away from the bait. My suggestion, ditch the leader, and use only braid. Upgrade to a heavier test and keep fishing. Who cares if you dont catch anything... I just enjoy being outdoors and away from everything else. Its relaxing and enjoyable, whether I'm catching fish or not. I'm just happy I can fish.

[Rebbasser]

Kawabuggy-are by chance using a spinning reel? If so, you are a victim of line twist. Doesn't matter if it is mono, braid, or fluoro, if you have line twist that can occur. However, there is a solution:

If you are fishing out of a boat let the line trail behind the boat with nothing tied to it while you are running and reel it in when you get where you are going to fish reel it in. As it trails behind the boat it will untwist. If you don't have a boat, go someplace where you have room, open the bail, grab the end of the line with nothing tied to it and start walking. When you get to the end, reel it in keeping it tight between your fingers. As you reel it in it will untwist.

[chjohnson622]

Check the line that you are using for your leader. How old is it, Where do you store it, Mono goes bad quick. And if the line is old, yeah it will just break. 2nd I break off alot on hook set myself when I use lighter line like 12lb or less when fishing with something like a TX rigg etc.... And part of my problem is I set the hook hard real hard and if I have any slack in my line it will break. The slack that Iam talking about is I have the bump I weigh the fish, line tight I go to set the hook and I drop rod tip maybe 2 inches and bamm that slack will break the line.

All this to say make sure line is still good and watch the slack line hook set.

And yes 12lb is light line.

[Fishnfool4evr]

Oh as for your rat nest, remember yur reeling in slack line, which means yur reeling in loose line n no matter what kind of line yur using, its going to throw extra line when u cast, used to happen to me a lot, then i started pinching the line between my fingers every 4-5 cast to make sure it was going on the spool tighter. i'm sure yur yur using an open face reel, since i personaly have never seen a bait caster throw a nest, just make sure u keep yur line tight on the spool every so often n you'll alliviate that part of yur problem. good luck fishing and remember to

[Kawabuggy]

I am using Stren Super Braid that I just purchased, and installed. The leader material is Trilene XL which I purchased (and had problems with) less than 2 months ago.

Since I popped both the braid once, and the Trilene once, I believe the line must be coming across sharp objects that are cutting it under the water. It is unknown what the bottom of the lake looks like. There are no boats allowed, no swimming allowed. It is a public park. The only thing I am sure of, is that it has a healthy bass population, catfish, & bream. The area I was fishing has a large tree that literally fell over into the water. The trunk is big enough that I could not wrap my arms around it. I am 6'3" so this tree was pretty big. I actually stand on the root system of the tree where I fish. I believe the fish are holding up under this tree and that is how they are tying me up.

This is the same pond, and fishing spot, that I hooked into one once before and he wrapped me up. I had to cut the line and let him go with the hook in his mouth. I could pull as hard as I wanted and then the line would stop.. If I gave it slack the line would start feeding out again as he swam away from whatever it is he had me hung up on.

I keep hearing that Fall is really good fishing.. In Houston, TX. when exactly should I count on that to happen? Normally around here temperatures don't begin to drop until late November, and sometimes even late December. It does not get cold here-below 50 deg.-until late January or February.

[bassfisher02]

What test braid? No bass will break 20lbv braid and up, no matter what anyone says. There is no way that the bass will straight up break braid from strength alone. It will need help like sharp objects, which is why I think theres something sharp down there... That or you got a bad spool of braid, I'd personanlly go with Powerpro.

Now I'd suggest losing the leader... that way you wont have any problems with stupid mono.

And bird nests will always happen once in a while. I persoanlly havent had one in quite some time since using braid, but it'll happen.

[Raul]

BF2 is correct, no bass will break 20 lb braid, if the line is in perfect condition .

One thing that most people seem to forget it that braid is as sensitive to abrassion as any other line, 20 lb test means that it has 20 lb test strength of tensile strenght, it will break once it reaches 20 lbs or more.

But braid also wears down if rubbed against objects, the difference is that instead of being one strand it´s multiple strands and those itsy bitsy strands break and the line weakens, besides, 20 lb braid is very thin in diameter.

Also, Trilene XL is a terrible choice for leader material, the limpness of the nylon also makes it extremely non abrassion resistant, if you want a leader use something else like a piece of P-Line CXX as leader, that thing is tough as nails when it comes to abrassion resistance, it has extremely high tensile strength and very difficult to break, the only problem with it is that in the higher tests like 14 or more pounds it does have a lot of memory and coils badly.

[BigBassin144]

As my mom always says, "**** happens!" (and yes, she actually says that) What kind of brand braid are you using, maybe its just cheap... I've had somewhat the same problem. the last five times me and my dad went fishing we outfishes me.
this is how it goes:
1. him 6 bass, me one 2" bluegill
2. him 2 bass, me nothing
3. him 1 nice sized bass, me 4 mosquito bites
4. him 2 bass, me 18 mosuito bites
5. him 2 bass and 3 LDCR*, me 37 mosquito bites.

the fifth time he convinced me it was because he was using a crankbait, so i used the same crankbait, him a bandit 100 series crank baby bluegill colored, me a bandit 100 series crank roobeer colored. then i tried the same crank in brown/red colored, still nothing...

bb144

*P.S. for those of you who don't know that's long distance catch and release.