searching the water column

[steelhead]

Mike P, your analogy helps, especially compared to trout fishing. In fact, I use a lot of wet fly trout fishing techniques in my saltwater fly fishing for stripers and blues. Bassmaster, I'm new enough to saltwater plug fishing that I'm still learning names of plugs. so maybe one of my questions might be, different plugs for different water? Estuaries, beaches, bars, rocks, etc.? I think I need to try to rephrase my question a bit. Maybe the best way to do it is to describe what I've learned so far, which is from fly fishing for bass and blues, and try to find out/figure out how it may or may not cross over to plug fishing. I will also say right up front that the more I learn about fishing for these critters, the more I discover that I don't know and often times, am totally baffled!

I like to fish current. That seems to where I find most of my bass. I have found current in the tidal estuaries, along the beaches, bars, and rocks. When I fish the current, generally I start at the top of the water column with a floating line, my leader and a fly (usualy some sort of flatwing). I'll cast and dead drift, keeping in touch with the fly, but I try let the current provide a great deal of the action to the fly, which means at times, it's fished very slowly with me soimply maintaining conatc with the fly. The I'll add split shot to the leader, so that I'm progressively moving deeper and deeper in the water column, untill I'm bottom bumping. I'll also play with some retrieves to see if that triggers strikes as I search the column.

Even on beaches, at the beach break, I have found wonderful current and mini rips that will carry youre line quite a ways out from shore, often with feeding fish at the bereak or at the edges of the rips.

Rocks, where the wash rides up and back down, when you time it right, can doa all sorts of things for you.

I guess what I'm wondering is whether the same sort of finesse exists with plugs. I have always found it to be a much more cerebral approach as opposed to the same old cast and strip technique. From my limited experience with plugs this fall, there seems to be quite a lot of cross over and room for a huge variety of presentations and techniques.

Sorry of this rambles. In time the questions will become more focused.