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
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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
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