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Went out around 8am and hit the Vegas Wash for bait. Saw about half a dozen boats on the right side, so we went left.
Bait was made in about 30 minutes.
Saw toady79, he was yakless but making bait from shore.
We left the shad area and hit Sand Island for the drift. The wind was lite but we set up our Carolina rigs. One ounce weight and a 1/0 hook.
The drift was the Striper producing approach as we saw many boats anchored with little to no action. Around 11am the bite went wide open, we could only handle one pole each to avoid line tangles.
Drifting or slow trolling with live bait produces more bites than anchoring.
Finally called it at 2:30 and headed in.
75 Stripers landed, lots of missed bites, some that just came unbuttoned.
Try the drift, it will change the way you fish forever.
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Awesome! I need to get back out there one of these days... The freezer is getting low on Stripers and I need to test my new bait well too.
Tom
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Man you guys got it nice having that kind of fishing so close to home. If I want stripers it's a 6 hour drive and a multi day trip for me.
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Wow that sounds awesome. So are you getting the shad in the same place from last winter? Basically where the wash dumps in or somewhere else ? So when you are drift fishing what depth are you fishing vs the actual depth of the bottom ? Sorry for all the questions but when I net shad I am lucking to get 10 stripers for the whole day and I thought that was pretty good but I would rather catch more Plus I enjoy eating stripers too. Any help would be appreciated. I do have a fish finder but I have only used once last winter
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With the changing water levels nothing is like last winter. You can basically go were the water enters the wash. Coves hold most of the bait even Government wash area.
Now....how deep to fish and what depth to put the bait.
Right now depth of water doesn't really matter. We fished off Sand Island drifting from 150ft to 30ft of water.
In the deeper water 30-60 feet held suspended fish.
Now for the number one, got to have fish hack.....
How to get to the fish depth without a line counter. Set up with a Carolina rig with a 1 ounce weight. Let the line drop down in the water column. As it drops count 1, 2 , 3, 4, 5.......14, 15 stop you are at 30ft. This technique drops a bait about 2ft per count, not per second but a count cadence. (as if you were asked to count to ten in hide and seek )
In shallower water around 75 feet or less, drop to the bottom and reel up. You will get about 2ft per turn of the handle.
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To ensure proper depth you can also mark your line with a sharpie at a set distance.
In this case every ten feet might work. Then just count the marks. Works great for trolling as well.
One other thing, with a 1oz weight if you vertically jig it aggresivley you can usually mark it going up and down on your fish finder. Even my lower end Elite 4X deal can mark a jig at 30 feet down to 45-50.
Go get those stripers!
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In-Fisherman had an article (long time ago) about marking you fishing line with a sharpie.
They suggested carefully cutting a notch at the tip of the marker. The line is then colored/marked with ease.
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[quote iamthesmf]In-Fisherman had an article (long time ago) about marking you fishing line with a sharpie.
They suggested carefully cutting a notch at the tip of the marker. The line is then colored/marked with ease.[/quote]
I do that to all of reels that have braid on them for about the first 10 feet after the knot to the fluorocarbon leader but not for distance counting. To make the line dissapear. Suppppper huge markie with a healthy V-Cut in the center of the pad. Like the tip is 1 or 1 1/2"" by 1/4 or 1/2" or so. Smaller markers just go to heck in no time those big honkin' ones last a loooong time in the boat and blacken out the braid in one swing.
For me... Swinging the tip of the rod from the waters edge upwards to about the 1 or 2 o'clock position is +/- 10 feet of tip movement. Just release the line swing up and stop the line slowly go down and repeat the action to the desired depth. Usually +/- a few feet from where I want to be verified after the fact on the sonar. Fast and simple to do. No need to pre-set a particular rod/reel with marks on the line, etc.
Same principal when trolling and what we did last June trolling for Kokanee Salmon when keeping track of the amount of line out was critical for depth control. Swing the rod trip from the "normal" trolling position pointing out the back corners of the boat forward to the 1-2 o"clock position with the bail open/button pushed to allow the line to freely come out during the motion. Stop the line going out and slowly go back to the normal trolling position and repeat. 5 times is 50 feet, etc.
Tom
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