I am a die hard shore chucker. I have been fishing w/o a boat for so long that I would probably find having one more burdensome than liberating. I did get out in a boat recently and managed to steal a few tricks that will mean more fish and more waters for me to fish even though I will be fishing from shore. Also, I have been reading your posts this summer and picking up on what the others here are doing and using. Here is a little list of what I have learned.

1.) Road Runner Lures: I had forgotten about these. One would think for someone that uses lead head jigs for 5 months every year they would play a bigger part in my strategy. I got some now and will be getting some bigger sizes for walleyes too. I'm not especially happy with the blades that they use on them I might try hybridizing a Thomas type blade on to a couple and see how that works. Gold is king in the Susquehanna and I like gold blades on my spinners.

2.) Spinner Baits: Another lure that I had all but forgotten. I read with interest some posts about spinner baits catching largies and smallies and thought I give them another look I like to keep things scaled down when fishing the river so I picked up a couple smaller ones to try. They have produced fish when tried but not the quantities that the Thomas Spinner will pull out form the same areas. What would really please me with both the spinner baits and the road runners is if they prove useful in the next few months when my focus shifts from smallies to walleyes and smallies in that order.

3.) Rattle Traps: I didn't forget about these I had just written them off as attractive looking lures that didn't catch fish. I remember starting a couple threads about them stressing that I have never had any luck with them. Well I take that back I did catch one, a pike years ago. I saw a splash along the shore of the susky and tossed what I had tied on, (rattle trap) towards the spot where the fish broke water. It was like feeding the sharks. The pike hit instinctively and put on a good show in the shallow water along shore. That was probably 20 years ago. I have a couple dozen rattle traps that have been sitting around collecting dust since then. So swerving back to the subject, I was out fishing with Jigwiggler and Rico last week and what do they tie on but Rattlin' Rapalas. OK I was surprised but when they they started to catch some smallies I took notice. They had on the black and silver ones, I searched throught my tilt and found an old orange and brown 3" model with one hook missing. After stealing a hook from another lure I had a serviceable model to use. I caught a couple dozen fish on it that day. I dug up a couple more from the junk pile before I went out with HD on Tuesday and had more luck with them fishing from shore. One of the things that I always liked about them was the fact that they don't hang up on stuff as frequently as the regular stick baits do. For me, fishing from shore most of the time, lure survivability is a big factor.

4.) New water to fish: This won't be a news flash for a lot of you but it was an observation that will open up a lot of overlooked water for me and maybe for some of you too. In summer time I searched out the fast runs that form around islands, river bends and creek mouths to find actively feeding smallies. What I learned fishing with Jigwiggler was that the zone of moving water that holds fish is much larger than I had been making use of. I tended to work the area of fast water and that immediately adjacent to it. Fishing from the boat we were easily able to access and catch fish from water that I would have passed on before. This new prospect was put to the test on Tuesday when I tried my luck in some spots that I would have walked right past before. Having some new water to fish and some new lures to use really got me pumped up for the morning and helped to make for an enjoyable day on the river.