"SPROONNGGG !!" The adrenaline rushing sound (tho' more imagined than actually heard!) caused by my Emmrod's steel coil yielding to the monstrous rainbow trout was as unexpected as it was sudden. You see, I'd only stopped off at the lake for 10 minutes to straighten out a few glitches on my special "notching" retreive. Following the previous night's severe thunderstorms, the lake was a mud pit with hardly any visibility. I sure didn't expect my experiments with fast paced lure to be "interrupted"! Yet, as I'd been promised as a wide-eyed youth almost 50 years earlier, the "notching" system can yield miracles!

As related to me during my preteens, "notching" was developed by a very popular Native American guide who worked the remote swamp lakes of mid Florida. Essentually, he fastened a hand tied, double jointed bucktail jig with a special knot (more on this to come) which would totally restrict the jig head from shaking or rolling, and concentrate all action to the tail. The idea was to get a realistic minnow swim ; that is, no wide wobbling or twitching of the body,but ,rather, all motion seemingly originating from a swishing tail.The productive, bass catching guide fished his girded lure fast and enhanced absolute straight running lure control and hooking power by pointing his rod tip downward, even to the point of burying half his rod tip underwater, directing in line with his lure.

These days the notching system has been UPDATED with much more efficient ,state-of-the-art equipment.First ,of course, is the simple fact that an Emmrod is perfect for notching ,due to its diminutive length, which eliminates the messy necessity to stick a tip under water ;it just seems natural to retreive with an Kayak King or Gulfmaster pointed downward. Also the strength and leverage provided by these steel coiled wonders will in themselves implant a hook on a relatively fast steady retreive with no added effort by the angler.Small diameter, non stretch braided "superlines" certainly aid in pinning an attacking bass, trout ,or pike. And today's "swimbait" soft plastic bodies when fixed on an appropriately sized jighead are absolutely perfect for notching.

Let's focus now on the main component of the entire system: an update which one of my good friends, preeminent Wisconsin fly fishing guide Nelson Ham, refers to as the "McKean Notch Knot".As can be seen in the attached photo, I've adapted a "uni-knot" to fit around the collar of a jighead to "lock" it in place during the swim, and also,maybe more importantly, lowers the line pull position for vastly superior hook setting. Simple directions are to first tie a free uni-knot on either braid or mono, then hold the end loop with fingers on the bottom of a roundhead jig's collar. Twist the loop once and place the second circle directly over the jigs eye and stem.Pull tight to the NOTCH between the jig-eye and head, and get it very tight right on the front of the hook's stem. No,the hook eye itself is not even used -something that some of us with "softening" eyesight can appreciate! By the way, the best jigheads to tie the notch-knot on, due to&nbs p;the line's need to slide in place over metal, are made of slippery,smooth tin or tin alloys such as those produced by jig-pourer supreme, Keith Okimoto (www.leadfreejigheads.com), or the above mentioned Nelson Ham.

Once secured, take the tightly wrapped jighead ,place on any of today's active tailed plastic minnows ( I highly recommend the Charlie Brewer Double Action grub), cast it out over a weedbed, around rocks or stumps, and crank that sucker in quickly! Experiment with speeds,though ;in springtime you may find a slower paced minnow to be the ticket; later , hot weather may have you virtually bulging the surface with your notched bait. No need to go with an expensive ultra high speed reels,however; I often do my best notching with a simple,easy to cast (love those Emmrods with long casting handles!) spincast reel, and enjoy the enhanced feel and control of a cork foregrip when retreiving. The quality spincast reel offered on this site will allow an ideal notching speed with any of today's swimbaits.

During an admittedly exceptional weekend on Lake Erie recently,my 25 year old son ,Sean, and I used the notching technique a good bit of the time to land over 300 hard fighters (mixed variety) on our fast,steadily worked swimbaits.If you like to "notch" your catches on the rod handle,as did the oldtime gunslingers of our Wild West, best you order a few extra handles!!