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Posts: 76
| I just got done reading Tom Deitzs chatroom seminar. Great read. For those who haven't read it he talks in detail about sight fishing in the spring using reaper tails on jigs in the shallows.
My question is when in the spring is this tactic used? How soon after ice out does this work? Prespawn? Spawn? Post spawn?
Thanks for any pointers in advance.
Edited by IntroC 4/4/2007 9:57 PM
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Posts: 3240
Location: Racine, Wi | For me this has been a post spawn bite. Many of the fish we see and catch are still beat up from spawning. Usually for about 2 weeks or so after the spawn this can be a great pattern. The days it works best are the hot, flat calm or little chop days in the spring.
I think as long as you have a warming trend with the cooler water it will be a good pattern. The biggest things that effect it are water clarity and wave action. Basically if you can see the fish, you can catch them. So in that respect, you can do this pre spawn as well, however I've done really well with post spawn fish.
The other time it works is in early fall. If you have fish moving up into some really shallow water up in the sand, you can catch them. |
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Posts: 4266
| I've done a little of it, and it usually was a matter of what I like to call "incedental contact", which means that I drift into the fish by accident.
I have found that the fish I have caught doing this normally coincided with smallmouth bass bedding, if that helps you narrow the temp range, but it's definitely a post spawn thing.
In the spring opener up north, I'll always have a jig fishing rod rigged and ready to go. I've got a St Croix 8' In-Shore spinning rod rigged with 17 or 14 pound line, and light, stand-up jig heads pre-rigged with seven strand leaders and Reapers or other plastics. I'll make casts along logs, around docks and reed edges and cabbage clumps. Seeing fish to cast to is rare, but your heart gets pumping when you cast a large plastic near some shallow cover and see a long shadow coming out from the object you just cast to. I've caught fish from under docks, swimming rafts and other man-made structure. I've always thought that a place like The Eagle River Chain, with all of it's boat houses, would be a great place to take plastics and go flipping and pitching like bass fishermen. Sight fishing there would not really work because of the color of the water, but the shallow jig presentation should be great on a body of water like that.
I've fished docks on some clear water lakes in the spring, and managed a few under 40" fish, and at the same time caught walleyes and smallmouths on Reapers and other Creature type plastics. Those muskies just might be setting up under docks and taking advantage of the smallmouth and rock bass coming in to start making beds. I also see schools of suckers cruising in less than 3 feet of water at this same time of year.
I'm sure that Sworrall has jigged up more than a few muskies early in the season.
Beav
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| the small sized and medium size Delong Eels have worked for sight fishing in the past for me..
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