Method 1
Equipment
I fish baits at all depths, not just the bottom, in wide-open
water. I always set up and fish deep lake structures. Besides an
understanding of the contours on the bottom of the lake, being
mobile and being able to read your fish locator are the keys.
The tools I use are 8-foot heavy action rods, circle hooks, cut
and live shad, balloons and the all-important fish locator. I
use 30-pound line, large capacity reels, 8-foot heavy action
rods, 2 oz. Egg sinkers, barrel swivels and #7/0 circle hooks.
Basically a Carolina Rig, I have a hook with an 18-inch leader
tied to your barrel swivel, which is connected to your main
line, which is where your egg sinker is attached. My boat is
equipped with steel rod holders, a hand-controlled trolling
motor, two fish locators, a big dip net and marker buoys. My
equipment is not the most expensive but it is practical. The
main thing to remember is to keep whatever equipment you use in
good condition. Many know all too well about the disasters that
can be caused by old line and improperly maintained fishing
equipment and big Blues will test everything from your knots to
your rod holders. If there is a weak link, they will expose it.
Find the Big Fish
You need to know how to tell the difference between larger fish
and bait fish while using your fish locator.
There are two main structures that I catch Blue Cats on: ledges
and humps. Blue Cats are creatures of edges and they seem to
congregate on the brake lines of ledges and humps. The one-two
punch comes when you find these structures with both bait fish
and big fish mixed together on your locator. There are very few
spots that I will stop and fish where I don’t see either big
fish or bait fish on my locator. The ledges that I primarily
fish are old river channels edges. The fish can be scattered up
and down the edge but the best fishing occurs when they are on
the top.
Catching Them
Typically, when I set up to fish these ledges, I run my boat
over them and throw out my marker buoy where I see the fish. A
little trick to using your marker buoys is to throw your marker
upwind of where you are going to fish. If you drop the marker
right on top of the fish, you will be bumping it and will
eventually move it while the wind is pushing you around. If you
throw it upwind of the fish, you can run your trolling motor
right up to it without the wind pushing you over it.
Next I bait my rods, staggering them at the depth I see the
fish. If the fish are up high, above 10 feet, I use a balloon
and live shad on two rods. The other four rods will have half
live and half cut shad, which I will suspend over the fish,
continuously moving around the marker until the first strike
occurs. In the warmer months the bite will usually occur on live
shad. The colder the water, the better that cut bait seems to
work.
Keep moving the depth of your baits up and down according to
what your locator is telling you. An easy way to determine the
depth of your bait is to measure the distance between the first
guide and your rod’s reel. My rods are two feet from reel to the
first guide so when I pull out twenty sections of line between
my reel and the first guide, my bait will be approximately 40
feet deep. Stagger the depth of your bait so that you know how
deep each is. When you get your first strike, move your other
rods to that depth. If no strikes occur within 30 minutes move
to another structure. I have set on the same ledge for many
hours and caught fish, but I will usually have to move after
catching 5 to 10 active fish. If you do not have a trolling
motor you can use anchors, but it requires many sessions of
heaving up heavy anchors and can soon kill the fun of ledge
fishing. When water is at its coldest, the anchor method will
work better due to the inactivity of the fish below.
In other words, the warmer the water the faster the fish will
spook out from under your boat. The colder the water the less
chance the fish will want to move away due to their comfort zone
in the water column.
Make sure to read Part 3 of this article to learn about Capt.
Jeff's second non-typical technique!
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