Fishing "Slow"

[Rebbasser]

Now that winter is upon us in most parts of the country, you see a lot of advice saying to "fish slow", but what does that really mean?

Most people think that means just letting the bait sit, which it does. However, there is another part that often gets overlooked: How far do you move the bait?

For example, you have let your jig sit for as long as you can stand, and then move your bait. You raise the rod tip from, say, 10:00 to 12:00 and then let it sit again. A lot of time in cold water that is not how natural prey move. Instead, they move a couple of inches at a time, then stop and sit. I've found that rather than raising the rod tip from 10:00 to 12:00 raising it to 10:15 or 10:30 can increase your catch because you don't pull the bait out of the fish's strike zone, because in cold water it isn't very big to begin with.

Just a little food for thought.