12-22-2018, 01:34 PM
[#0000FF]Whenever I throw plastics...twisters, swim baits or tubes...I am constantly changing up the presentation. When the water is warmer and fish more active you can often do well by swimming the plastics back above the bottom...low, middle or high in the water column. Your sonar will tell you where the fish are holding or cruising.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]If I am prospecting to find the fish, I will count down the drop...after the cast...and then reel just fast enough to keep the lures at the desired level. At other times I will reel fast for a few turns and then slow down or even stop to let the lure drop back toward the bottom. Once I find the level the fish are hitting I can make that same count on successive casts. But still keep changing it up.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]This time of year...when fish are less active and most are hanging on or near the bottom...I keep the jigs on the downlow. Slow reeling and stopping, with occasional rod tip lifts and light jigging action. Keep your line tight and pay attention...not only to the feel on your rod for any little ticks or light back pressure (rubber band feel)...but also watch the rod tip and where the line goes in the water. Sometimes you will get visual cues to a bite and not even feel anything on your rod. Give a wrist snap hookset whenever there is a "change in the force". Hooksets are free and by reacting to anything suspicious you will hook fish instinctively when you did not have time to consciously register that you were being molested.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]The walleye in the one picture was caught before I really started using fligs much at Willard. It actually took a small chartreuse "flat rinkee" that I make for ice fishing...and was using as a dropshot jig above a bigger jig...fishing for the perch. It was tipped with only a small piece of crawler. See pic.
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[#0000FF]If I am prospecting to find the fish, I will count down the drop...after the cast...and then reel just fast enough to keep the lures at the desired level. At other times I will reel fast for a few turns and then slow down or even stop to let the lure drop back toward the bottom. Once I find the level the fish are hitting I can make that same count on successive casts. But still keep changing it up.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]This time of year...when fish are less active and most are hanging on or near the bottom...I keep the jigs on the downlow. Slow reeling and stopping, with occasional rod tip lifts and light jigging action. Keep your line tight and pay attention...not only to the feel on your rod for any little ticks or light back pressure (rubber band feel)...but also watch the rod tip and where the line goes in the water. Sometimes you will get visual cues to a bite and not even feel anything on your rod. Give a wrist snap hookset whenever there is a "change in the force". Hooksets are free and by reacting to anything suspicious you will hook fish instinctively when you did not have time to consciously register that you were being molested.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]The walleye in the one picture was caught before I really started using fligs much at Willard. It actually took a small chartreuse "flat rinkee" that I make for ice fishing...and was using as a dropshot jig above a bigger jig...fishing for the perch. It was tipped with only a small piece of crawler. See pic.
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