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| Once the lakes are uniformly mixed (post turnover) how do you decide if you should present your bait high or low in the water column? I hate that darn feeling when fishing say a 20 foot hump and your not sure if you should be grinding a countdown along the bottom or hanging a good flashbait up high.
By default... I usually split the difference... but often feel I am missing out on something better. Sure, you can team up with a partner and hopefully figure it out through trial and error... but is there a way to cut corners and save time? Time on the water is always the best solution... but for many of us... time is scarce. Anything to look for to speed up the learning curve? Weather trends? Baitfish? Types of structure? Crystal ball????
jlong |
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| I look to see where the bait is. If they are 18 feet or higher, I go shallow. 18 feet or deeper, I go deep. If I don't see any bait, I'll put on a deep diver and work it deep and shallow, alternating every couple of casts. Hope this helps.
Muskies to all.....Pat
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| If the structure is a hump I will fis at depth just higer then what the hump tops out at. Fish suspended antwhere near it will usually be at that depth. If fishinf a steep break I prefer making cast running along it with different baits working my down it going to deeper baits as I go deeper. I also like getting on top in the shallow and casting deep diving baits and bumping them into the structure as I retrieve my bait.
Don Pfeiffer |
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| Jason, I always tend to error on the side of too shallow. A fish has a much easier time finding and hitting a bait that is above it rather than below. I am a firm believer that an active fish looking to eat will not hesitate to come up 10+ feet to attack its prey. As the fish get more neutral I think that is the time to get down in their face and even start digging up a little gravel with the lip.
I almost always start in the top 6 feet in the water column searching for the more active fish in a positive feeding mode and gradually work deeper if the first presentations aren't producing. |
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| Jason,
As you may have noticed last weekend I love to grind the bottom in the fall. After starting to do this I have moved a lot more fish, and caught my biggest fish bumping a mid lake hump in 20 ft of water. Would that fish have come up for a higher bait? Don't matter now. The reason I like the idea of crunching the bottom in the fall is because you can slow crank a sinking/suspending crank making it easier for a fatty to munch it without exerting excess energy.
I also think the baitfish connection has something to do with it. Suckers especially like to hang the bottom in the fall, as well as the suspending schools of perch tend to drop in the water column as the fall progresses. A lot of people say muskies will not feed down, but I disagree. I have seen muskies below my ice fishing hole move down to eat baitfish. |
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| Their eyes are positioned on the top of their head for a reason. I always fish high. I know that they'll move up for a bait, I don't think that they actively target things below them.
Beav |
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