Drifting for Gills....tough day.

[Alphahawk]

Fished Dale Hollow with my son today...always a good thing. Was trying to catch Gills drifting along using a Midnight Blue ThunderHawk Dancer and a Bison colored Trout Magnet. For both of us a new way of fishing. It works but requires patience to stick with it....we are both used to casting for everything. The fish were all caught in about 15-18 feet of water. I would see them on the di and next thing you know we both would have hook ups. We only caught about 16 or so Gills and 4 Smallies...only took a pic of the 18 incher. The other Smallies were 11-13 inch fish. All fish caught on SOS 2# test line...a lot of fun. Didn't get a single pic of the Gills my son caught....he got the good ones. He was impressed with the girth on the Gills up there. Only fished about 5 hours. Saw a golden eagle pretty close up today....quite impressive. I am going to keep at it with this method when I fish up there this summer. They go deep in summer....and evidently stay deep all summer long. Just have to stick with it. Life is good!


Regards

[Mikeyrrt]

Nice catches


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[Travis C.]

Be careful a big bow may come swipe that Dancer.

I do that a lot in the kayak and did it a lot in my river boat using just oars. Speed or lack there of is the key. I'd catch a bunch of crappie in summer on my crappie spots when they'd move out from spawning areas.


Another technique I want to try is tying a small bell sinker on the bottom then a TM jig onto a dropper loop and fishing it like a micro drop shot. I think I can find some big shellcrakers on a couple gravel channel banks that way.

[Alphahawk]

Originally Posted by Travis C.

Be careful a big bow may come swipe that Dancer.

I do that a lot in the kayak and did it a lot in my river boat using just oars. Speed or lack there of is the key. I'd catch a bunch of crappie in summer on my crappie spots when they'd move out from spawning areas.


Another technique I want to try is tying a small bell sinker on the bottom then a TM jig onto a dropper loop and fishing it like a micro drop shot. I think I can find some big shellcrakers on a couple gravel channel banks that way.

Right you are. I am thinking of going down to a 1/16 ounce head and try the speed at .3-.5 MPH. I think yesterday I was too fast going at .9. This is all new to me but I will get it....any help is appreciated.

Regards

[Travis C.]

Originally Posted by Alphahawk

Right you are. I am thinking of going down to a 1/16 ounce head and try the speed at .3-.5 MPH. I think yesterday I was too fast going at .9. This is all new to me but I will get it....any help is appreciated.

Regards

I don't have the electronics set up on my river boat and currently not on my kayak either. So I have no clue on speed as far as mph.

This is my typical set/method. I will use a TM head w/TM plus a single B shot about 12-18" up. My rods are set a 45 degrees to the water not flat. I cast out and will continue to let line out I feel its close to ticking bottom. I use line length instead of weight to control depth. As far as speed, I want a bow in my line. If my line is straight coming off the rods I am too fast. You just want it sagging a little not a lot then you risk hang ups. Slow is the name of the game and sometimes a light breeze is your best friend.

Its not a very technical method and I hope I explained it somewhat clear. The method I use catches a lot of fish though.

[TnCreekMaster]

If you don't have any electronics just download the navionics app it will display your speed pretty accuratly and it's free just search navionics under the play store or the app store