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Old 12-21-04, 07:01 PM   #1
ryan7261
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Default Drifting


I tend to use soft stickbaits as lures that imitate preyfish - any kind of preyfish. I understand they could easily resemble half a dozen other things to a bass - including crayfish - but I have other lures I like to resemble crayfish. I like stickbaits to be preyfish. I fish them horizontally, often casting out and swimming them back steadily like I have some kind of live baitfish out there on the end of my line. The tapered shape of the stickbait body resembles a preyfish. Some are skinny, like the Senko and Slug-go, and I fancy these as minnows, Some are sway-bellied like the Fluke and Assassin and I visualize these as shad, alewives, and roach. Some, like the Fin-S-Fish have a medium silhouette as do many preyfish. So, any stickbait has got the silhouette of a baitfish, and simply by drifting it along the bottom with a strong flow or reeling it in steadily through quieter water, it's got the glide-along motion of a smoothly swimming baitfish in addition to the shape. That's often all the recognition a bass neeeds to trip the alarm that it's a live preyfish. Most preyfish are only a few inches long (3" to 6&quot, and essentially "do nothing" most of the day but float and slowly move along rather uneventfully. They just glide along on hardly-noticeable flicks of their tails that propel them forward in a rather straight direction. Those "hardly noticable tail flicks" are exactly what the subtle body waverings of a stickbait send out visibly and audibly to the bass. It's a good trigger to get a bite.


DRIFTING. Deadstick it without any rod motion. Just cast upcurrent, let it hit bottom, and take in a turn or two so it sweeps downstream barely above bottom. You don't want it to roll and tumble - it will get fouled like that. Maintain "neutral" line control by taking out a little of the slack line with the reel only but you must keep some slack belly always to keep the lure down. Keep the rod tip stationery. Never use the rod tip to move the lure at this point. Using the rod tip will only make the lure rise too far from bottom. Instead, rotate your hips so the rod tip never moves, but by moving at the hips, your rod will follow the angle of the line perfectly as it flows down from upcurrent. So, always have the rod perfectly aligned with the line, and rotate your hips to keep it that way without ever moving the tip. Expect to get hit as the line passes 12 o'clock - the lure will do an about face in the current. If you know what you are feeling for, you will feel a tick then a tightening in the line as the lure does a 180 and starts to stem against the flow. It begins to rise off bottom and sway in the bottom-swirling current. Envision it kind of like a cranky kite that doesn't really want to get airborne, but does a lot of side-to-side shearing and waffling before it gets up there. It does that IF you have the proper equilibrium of slack/tension in the line. It's a yin-yang kind of thing where the line can't be too tight or too slack - but the line pressure must be in NEUTRAL at that moment. Just hold it there for a while motionless in the current. And you may now want to slowly bow the rod to mend slack - but you've got to experience when and why to do that - I'm not sure I can describe it in writing. At times, you will be surprised how long you can just wait for a bite. After that, if you can keep it down near the bottom, then retrieve it against the flow all the way back in. If it's too difficult to keep it near bottom, just reel in, make another cast, and let it swing down, turn and rise up again.

As far as a splitshot, use the correct weight shot to float down properly in the flow at hand. Micro-tune your shot load by trying different numbers and sizes of shot until you find you've got the correct load that let's the lure rise, fall, swirl, and veer off erratically as it swings down and is buffeted by the bottom-bouncing currents.

Keep in mind that the Senko will hunker down more than other stickbaits. In fact, each stickbait has different fluid dynamics in water, but the Senko is MOST different due to its density and round design. Other stickbaits are less dense, and other stickbaits usually have broad sides that are not as hydrodynamic as the round body of the Senko. The Senko sinks faster, tends to stay deeper, and gets pushed around a little more deliberately by a current whereas other stickbaits tend to "blow like leaves" and typically "plane up" in a flow.


Robby
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Old 12-21-04, 07:11 PM   #2
Rob Mak
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Default Re: Drifting

oh hell i thought you were talking bout snow drifting ;D

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