Choosing the right net for SML

[Yam]

As many of you know, I have spent many, many hours investigating nets. I watch them on down scan and have come to truly understand their mechanics such as openness, sink rate, etc.

My research indicated to me a few years back that a 1" mesh (2" stretch) would be the best all around net for mongos. Thus, I have spent a few years with 1 inch nets.

My field experience with these nets is that they will stay open deeper in the water column than 3/4 inch nets. However, they do have some negatives. First and most importantly, they are gilling nightmares. Have you ever thrown a half inch net on a light in the summer? Well.. Throwing a 1 inch net into a mass of dollars will give you a similar experience. Secondly, the bigger mesh is not as resilient when pulling up heavy snags such as logs and such.

Thus, the last few months I have moved back to a 3/4 inch net and I can tell you that it's been wonderful. First, it still stays open pretty well. Second, it releases dollars with minimal effort. Third, it will pull up trees with much less damage to the net. No doubt, it was not uncommon for me to spend an entire day at home repairing my 1 inch nets whereas now, I am spending maybe an hour or so repairing my 3/4 inch net. However, I will say that it takes longer in the field to remove debris from the smaller mesh.

Conclusion.... The edge a 1" net might give you by staying more open in deeper water is not worth the extra hastles, especially when our lake is loaded with dollar bills.

[ncsportfisher]

Great write up I am going to purchase a wade net.. i have a bunch of other 12' nets but since i am geared more towards saltwater, they close very fast.
What weight are you using with your 3/4 net? I am going to purchase another net for deeper water at SML and this fits the bill..

[Yam]

My latest net purchase is a 12 foot 3/4 inch and is 1.3 lbs per foot. It works pretty good in 20 foot or less of water if I throw decent. In 10 foot or less, the faster mongos don't stand a chance!

[ncsportfisher]

Great! All of my existing 12 footers are 1.8 lbs. per ft. ( i think) They are Betts super pro.. They work great at the coast as i am never really reaching down to the bottom... But at the lake they are not the best for deep bait, they seem to close too fast. i have a couple 12' 5/8 that are lighter and work better than my 3/4 but when the bait is deep they do not perform well. I will be ordering a new one soon, and i will go with the 12' with lighter weight!

[mwardncsu]

I'll agree with this assessment..... I've found the 3/4" mesh to be a good net for a variety of water depths. I've used a number of Fitec which are supposed to be 1.5 lbs/ft but may be a little bit on the light-side of that. I also have a 1.3 lb / 5/8" mesh Joyfish which I used as my shallower water combat net - as the mono on that net is larger, and that coupled with the tighter mesh makes the net stronger. The Fitec nets have a fairly thin mono - so that and the 3/4" help the net sink fairly quickly and is my go-to when throwing in water deeper than 10'.

[coheasion]

Jan 12, 2017 16:13:50 GMT -5 ncsportfisher said:

Great! All of my existing 12 footers are 1.8 lbs. per ft.

I tore my rotator cuff just reading that......

[ncsportfisher]

Jan 12, 2017 16:18:03 GMT -5 coheasion said:

Jan 12, 2017 16:13:50 GMT -5 ncsportfisher said:

I tore my rotator cuff just reading that......

It is not fun at all!  I will say this, you all know how fast the mongos move...Go off the beach and chase the "turbo" pogies, they're faster than any shad! Yam would have a blast doing that... Although, i will say they are a lot easier if there are fish under them! They hang out in big schools in the spring/summer. 

[ikMOON]

Thanks for the post Yam. I appreciate your sharing the benefits of your hours of R&D. I think you should name one of your 1" nets "The Dollar Bill Fairy" in honor of those of us who will miss profiting from your misfortune of Christmas treeing that thing from time to time.

I royally ripped my net a few weeks back. I've gotten better at repairing it since you recommended the right tools and reading but this last time I pronounced it totaled. Last week I called Tim Wade. The phone call itself was an experience. His recommendation to me, throwing at SML from a kayak, was an 8 foot 1/2" mesh with 1.25 lb per foot. His explanation of why that size with that mesh with that weight for the depth I wanted made a lot of sense.

We talked about the gilling problem too, which had a lot to do with choosing the smaller mesh size along with the fact that I'll be using it for finger mullet on the coast too. He suggested I work on my throwing with the safer mesh size and in time and with more experience over the lake I could call him back for another. Really glad to know your findings on the 3/4"mesh. That will be valuable information when it comes time to get another.

Thanks again.

[Yam]

Jan 12, 2017 18:03:17 GMT -5 ikMOON said:

Thanks for the post Yam. I appreciate your sharing the benefits of your hours of R&D. I think you should name one of your 1" nets "The Dollar Bill Fairy" in honor of those of us who will miss profiting from your misfortune of Christmas treeing that thing from time to time.

I royally ripped my net a few weeks back. I've gotten better at repairing it since you recommended the right tools and reading but this last time I pronounced it totaled. Last week I called Tim Wade. The phone call itself was an experience. His recommendation to me, throwing at SML from a kayak, was an 8 foot 1/2" mesh with 1.25 lb per foot. His explanation of why that size with that mesh with that weight for the depth I wanted made a lot of sense.

We talked about the gilling problem too, which had a lot to do with choosing the smaller mesh size along with the fact that I'll be using it for finger mullet on the coast too. He suggested I work on my throwing with the safer mesh size and in time and with more experience over the lake I could call him back for another. Really glad to know your findings on the 3/4"mesh. That will be valuable information when it comes time to get another.

Thanks again.

Yes, talking with Tim is definitely an experience. He has taught me a bunch and is great for validating what I find in the field.

That 1 inch not only benefitted kayakers, its trail of dollar death helped the entire food chain from bears, muskrat, snakes and birds to the fish in the water. I swear to you there are herons up north that know me by name and will come around whenever I am throwing.

Caaaaawwwww has become Yaaaaaammmm only the sound is not like a bird whistle, it is more like a monkey or a mad gorilla sound.

[jmr04]

Yam mentioned in his post how many dollar bills there were in the lake this year. Totally agree. I would say 95% of the bait I caught this spring was dollar bills. Last year I couldn't throw my net without bringing up a Christmas tree of peanuts. Saw very few this spring. My question is, do bait patterns move year to year? I assume all of those peanuts that were in the lake last year became the dollar bills that were so plentiful this year. Will the dollar bills from this year become money makers / Mongos next year? Hope that question makes sense. Thanks.

[jmr04]

That should read this fall rather than spring.

[tblspoon]

Excellent information. Would have been nice about three wweeks ago when I bought a 9' 1". The other is an 8' 1/2".

Will let you know which gilled more after tomorrow.

[BentRod]

Jan 13, 2017 17:40:21 GMT -5 jmr04 said:

Yam mentioned in his post how many dollar bills there were in the lake this year. Totally agree. I would say 95% of the bait I caught this spring was dollar bills. Last year I couldn't throw my net without bringing up a Christmas tree of peanuts. Saw very few this spring. My question is, do bait patterns move year to year? I assume all of those peanuts that were in the lake last year became the dollar bills that were so plentiful this year. Will the dollar bills from this year become money makers / Mongos next year? Hope that question makes sense. Thanks.

I'm convinced the striper size and population affects the forage immediately and in a huge way. I think back in 2010-2012, the striper population was out of control (we were catching 30 fish in 2hrs in one spot) and the big gizzard population was horrible those years, but yet there was gazillions of peanuts everywhere in the fall - in other words, our striper population was decimating the shad population in a single year. Since the striper population has declined some since 2012, the shad population has become more and more normal. Now we see the forage has changed again here this year and I relate it to the slot change - it followed it that closely. There's more bigger fish eating bigger bait so your mongos are thinned out. Then there's less smaller fish and fish overall to decimate the peanut population, so you've got more shad reaching dollar bill size, and therefore less peanuts overall this fall since more made it through from last year. I'm sure Bigun will jump on me, but I think we've over done it - I think we went too far in terms of thinning the striper population (it was being thinned already) and could use more stripers to keep us in balance - not 2010 levels, but maybe 2006-2008 or 2013-2014 levels. It's a difficult thing to balance. I do like the slot change bc I think it prevents clogging up the system with too many mid size fish but we need (or could handle) more stripers overall IMHO. I've not heard from Dan on growth, but my own experiences tell me growth is on the rise and it may explode here this coming year. I say stock a few more (50-100k/yr) and keep everything else the same.

[mwardncsu]

The lack of younger Year fish has shown up in gill netting over the last couple of years and as a result Dan has requested an increase to 450k stripers for stocking this year (up from 300-325k the past few years)