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Posts: 2
| in the past couple of months ive had several follows but no fish. am i lucky to see fish or am i doing something wrong. i have been fishing on the chippewa river and on the st croix. bucktails and spinners are my weapons of choice. any thoughts?? |
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Location: Sun Prairie, WI | Are you thoroughly figure 8ing at the end of each cast? If so, you may want to throw a "follow up" bait, perhaps a smaller minnow bait or a tube type immediately after the follow. Just a couple thoughts.
We all know how you feel...that slob of a fish is down there just a-breakin your heart with that follow. Keep after em...they'll eat eventually. |
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Posts: 2361
| Change speed and bucktail profiles, and add topwater to your arsenal. Nothing wrong with a bucktail as a bait. Sooner or later they bite. You may have some basic errors in your presentation that are hurting you.
You are finding somewhat active fish, or they wouldn't follow. Change times to low light, or cloudy and it might convert a bunch of followers to biters. Location is the first big problem and you have solved that one.
One tip when fishing cover of any kind, including riverbanks, start the retrieve when it hits the water, don't let the fish watch it sink. |
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| Speed Up- you see the fish as ways out go faster, flair the bait, hit the figure 8 even faster than your reeling. Make that bait look like it will get away.
Sometimes helps. |
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| Cut some of the hair back on your bucktail. Sometimes they want less hair like us!!! |
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Posts: 814
| What size lures are you using? dubba 10's, large spinnerbaits? DOWNSIZE try a llungen tail or a candy spin. sometimes smaller is better especially if their are just following. |
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Posts: 457
| If I might ask, what sections of the Chip are you attacking? There are several that are really pounded, and those fish seem to not hit except at night. I fish the chip from EC up, I've floated it from Wissota down, and done really well. No monsters, but a few nice fish.
I think the river itself gets a lot of pressure from recreation, and smallmouth, but not much in the way of 'ski fishermen in the area. So I tend not to really worry about that as much. The thing that I've found instrumental in my river fishing is to allow those fish to rest after a follow. You know they are there, you know where you put your previous cast, so give it a couple minutes, and put a throwback bait in there (I've found Yum Sweet cheeks in Black/green tail, or perch/orange tail and Storm wildeyes is FT work the best on the river for me). The other thing that I've found with 'skis on the river, is that you sometimes really have to downsize your baits. REALLY downsize them. I've had better luck with a HJ14 in various colors than say Jakes. Also, smaller bucktails #5 Mepps or Vibrax. I haven't fished the river a whole lot above Holcombe, but what I have found is that the same general patterns ring true. Smaller baits, less random casting, and a lot of patience. |
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Posts: 468
Location: Not where I wanna be! | hmmmm
Muskies following and not taking the bait??
that sounds like Musky fishing to me......:) |
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Posts: 556
| its more than normal folows and its easy to cover water when you can throw a reef hawg across the whole saint croix river  |
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