I'm convinced of one thing, the stripers that normally summer in my area aren't here, at least not in the numbers I'd like to see them. When fishing use to get slow back in my freshwater days, it was time to go exploring or time to try some new tactics and presentations.

I've kind of perfected a plastic presentation for the waters I fish, but it's not much good for water deeper than say 15 feet. Now a lot of the ledges I fish are near 40+ feet of water, but I'm counting on active fish in the top of the water column, which hasn't been panning out. Now I run over humps that top out at 20-30 feet all the time, when running over 40-50 foot of water. I've yet to see any real good fish marks, ones that I'd say have to be good stripers, but then again my depth finder is pretty useless at 50 mph :).

If on the next trip out it looks to be another slow day, I'm breaking out the charts and going to try some deeper water jigging. I'd appreciate any advice from those that are successful in pulling good stripers from the depths. Here are some questions;

1. Should I stay near my water, which has been so productive for so many years, but look for deeper water haunts. Just what makes a good deeper water spot, my guess is take any of my ledges and sink it in 50 foot of water. Or would I be better to look for more isolated humps, ones that top out around 20-30 feet, in much deeper water of maybe 60-75 feet?

2. I assume this is jigging territory now, with leadhead jigs or maybe metal. What are the most productive weights, styles and should I be tipping these jigs with plastic or pairing them with teasers.

3. What is the best presentation? I assume this is a controlled drift, working the jig aggressively with the rod, but what's aggressive, what's the tempo or cadence? Should I be contacting the bottom on every lift/drop or just occassionally to insure your lures at the right depth. Is a controlled drop critical as it is in freshwater, so that the jig isn't dropping on a slack line?

4. Bucktail or plastic skirted jigs? I've got a small selection of smilling bills and the like, but did like the double hook hairball jigs I saw at the show. The couple 1 oz jigs I picked up are OK for the shallows, but certainly not heavy enough for deeper waters.

5. I fish 75+ water with smilling bills for Cod, tipped with strips of mackeral, with good success. I assume I can use my usual tackle, since I really don't want to go any deeper even if that's the ticket. Once you start pulling fish up from water that deep, I think a lot of the thrill is gone.

Anyway, I'd love to know if this is something (deep water jigging) I should look into seriously? I'm not happy that the fishies have decided to summer elsewhere (I hope), so I'm looking for alternatives. I'm even considering building one of those damn long rods for the canal and following the white van around :).

My advice??? ah just throw in the towel and give me your boat :) :) :)

hey it was worth a shot wasnt it??? ;P

Don't follow my van Bob, I am a canal googan.

If I were you I'd be trailoring to 1 of three places off the top of my head.
1. Woods hole and follow Roccus around the Elizabeths tossing snakes at the rocks. Even try the Middleground - 8-40 ft. depths there. Or right in the Woods Hole passage. With your boat you can zip from one spot to the other pretty quickly.

2. Monomoy, go with someone that knows the water.Post your intentions on some boards and invite a carefully screened fisher aboard for some bass fishing. You would love it there.

3. P-town, there's gotta be large out there.

so if you ain't killin'em close to home, go elswhere. There's always Scorton Ledge after a few days of northern winds, but you'll have alot of company.

Anyway in a few more weeks the fishing will probably improve alot in your ledges. But then again, you're not one to wait either.

Come up to Maine. plenty of fish up here. On second thought...........never mind. I like fishing with no one within site.

ledge lizards rule!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1)Take two weeks off.
2) Try 3 waying eels over the humps in the very early morning. Like 3AM.
3)Head north.
4)Go for blues and Bonito for the next 2-3 weeks.

Bob, I,d try the same ledges that you fish now except at night with eels , if your into trolling ,,that hump at 20 ft sounds right with the tube and worm. I still think your doing better than most fisherman// later

Hey Bob, I think that On the Water had an article about deep water jigging with diamond jigs in last months issue. I'll check tonight... does anyone recall that article?

Anyway, I didn't read the article, nor do I know anything about it, but I can fax the article to you if I am able to find it.

Would that be helpful?

Maybe even chase bonito around Vinyard Sound

I appreciate the tips, but as much as I want to get into some fish, I'm not even going to consider trailering the boat over to the cape on a weekend. I might consider a weekday, but only if I had someone willing to tag along, someone that knew the water. I know there are times when it can be avoided, but I'm not up to speed on what those might be :), so I'd rather concentrate up my way.

SM, I think I remember the article, so I'll look back at past issues. Articles are all well and good, but they tend to be written for very specific situations, from a somewhat narrow point of view and for specific areas. I was hoping for more of general "how to" help, from anyone that routinely does any boat deep water jigging or for bass.

I may just start launching in Plymouth and give that area a try. I hate that ramp, great capacity, just no place to put your boat (especially if your alone) while you go get the trailer. Probably the most stupid town ramp setup I've ever seen, Scituate is the balls as far as ramps go.

What about Cod spot's, anyone care to share any tips or general areas. I'm a casual cod guy and my typical approach is on a return to Scituate harbor, turn east, go several miles and look for concentrations of boats :).

I'm going to get BC out and he can show me how to do it :), maybe even this weekend since FW is down south.

GS fished around the Pinthias wreck off of Green Harbor to the H bouy. We were there last week and did well on cod in water from 80 to 150 feet. Not alot of dogs so you can jig or use clams. Keep an eye for the Capt. John or Andy Lynn boats they fish the same areas and are around the cod. We got two 10 lb. pollack too. I used to fish around Minots alot but the last few years fish around the Canal more where the boat is. When the heat hit around Scituite we would usually put the casting gear away and chunk the ledges. It worked good at times and the fish were usually good sized. We would cast chunks to the rocks with no weight or use orange cork floats to drift them into the wash best spots were around the white water. Don't laugh about the floats it looks like your shiner fishing but it works. Those humps you are marking could work too but chunking them might start a dogfish blitz. I think the bass are still around the ledges but are just a little lazy, a chunk in front of them will work. Another bait to try is the purple clams the bait stores are selling, this is the hot bait for stripers especially around here. Good luck I'll be cod fishing Stelly if the winds die down by Saturday.

GS,

Hang in there, buddy. It is not a very dramatic change, going from 6 feet to 40 feet of water, depending on how you are fishing right now. DO NOT CHANGE LOCATIONS, IF THERE IS 40' OF WATER WHERE YOU HAVE BEEN CATCHING.

If you typically use soft plastics, you only need to change your angle of attack, and the weight of your leadhead. Also, you will find that fish respond much better to a very slow presentation, compared to a jerky topwater presentation.

In a full running tide, anchor your boat on the downtide side of a rockpile. Put on a 1 ounce jig with your favorite plastic. Cast uptide to the top of the rockpile. Give the lure time to settle, and when it hits bottom, begin to reel very slowly, and give it only small twitches.

As you reel, you should be able to feel the lure bumping bottom on occasion. You will not need to reel much, because, as the lure comes closer to you, it is also falling into deeper water. If you have perfect conditions, you can work a dropoff, almost without reeling.

What stripers typically want in this situation are baitfish being swept over the edge of the dropoff by the tide, so they can ambush them. Remember that a baitfish does not flail all over the place, when being swept by a tide. They basicly just ride it out, trying to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. So you do not want a lot of action in your lure, very unlike topwater action. There are times when it will work, but typically if you move it a lot, you will get a lot of followers but few takers.

I've spent the last three years fishing a structure like this extensively. It took a lot of time to really get it down pat, but I can now take guests, and with a few lessons, they are outfishing a lot of very experienced guys. There are a lot of variables, but it is really not that difficult, once you know the drill.

I shot you my phone number. Give me a call, and I can fill you in on the details a lot better.

Hmmm, that sounds alot like what I do at the Canal, Thill. Except I use 4-5 oz jigs ofcourse.

Welcome to the board thill. Good post.

THill - welcome to Striped-Bass from a former Balt'morian (well halfway from the to Annapolis, anyway :P ).... Nice post. GS has brought the debate of Angle-of-Attack to new levels with the jerkbaits he fishes, working them horizontaly instead of in the vertical. But now, some slow, deep, vertical swing jiggin' may be just what's needed at this time... BTW - THill - you'd wet yer pants if you saw the water he's working. It's that good... ;D

I have my best luck for larger bass, fishing a tube-n-worm on wire line in about 40-50' of water. This is where I have landed all my bigger fish this season.

My advice would be to move around, I will try many differant places, Block Island, Point Judith, Green Hill, Watch Hill. The majority of the larger fish have been taken at Point Judith and Block Island....

For the past couple seasons I solely fished East Beach from shore and had complete tunnel vision, I heard reports of fish in other places but was too stuborn to try them, needless to say I have caught 10 times the fish already this season that I caught all of last season with the best months are still to come....

If you need any more help let me know I have some good GPS locations marked.....

I can't help you with the jigging part as I only use jiggs from shore and i don't fish for fluke...

That's why I emailed you Tony, I was thinking about this the other day and then dawn broke over Marblehead; Thill will have the alternate presentation I'm looking to experiment with.

I sent you my office number, but in case some of the others might like a heads up, I can picture what your doing because it's very similar to my more subtle presentations, which are needed when the sun gets up; but let's take terminal tackle. What lead head style, manufacturer, hook size and will these be suitable for my 7 inch baits? Love to see a picture of the head/hook if you have a digital.

I can picture the presentation, which will work well on a fair number of ledges I fish. Others might be a problem, because they are so dam craggy, which could spell trouble for the braid. You might think your working your jig down the side, only to get snagged or have to start working back up a sister ledge, bad thing to place 30# braid against rock :(.

Looking forward to talking to you, I've got some things to do this morning, maybe later. Pop me an email and let me know what's a good time, thanks.

Look who came out to play, I think I would scare you if I said devels bridge and squibby with a tad of lower end rock banging. Got rubba?
follow slip...................

In best Homer Simpson voice..." HMMMMM, Squibby" - I hate to say this, but a couple years ago when they had all of that coverege of JFK's plane going down - how many here started drueling while the arial shots of Squibby, Philbin's, & Gay Head were rolled over and over and over... Now I fished the Squibby bowl twice and I can't wait to get back. Maybe when I get the boat I'll try Devil's Bridge - It's less than 30 miles from the house ;D - Welcome aboard BM and thanks for chearing me up - just the mention of the Vineyard and Squibby ;D ....