Hanging Baits

[3dkicker]

I was fishing a small feeder creek on the Chickahominy river (a tributary of the James) a few years ago with a fellow club member. He spent years guiding on the Potomac river and has fished with many of the top BASS guys from the 80's. I was fishing a fluke on the front of the boat and using my fast twitch, twitch, twitch, pause retrieve and he commented that I was fishing the bait way too fast. He explained that he would let the current move the bait (dead stick) and he would only twitch it every once in a while. I asked if he caught fish that way and he went into one of his long stories about catching many fish on the river with that technique. I was impressed with the number of fish he claimed to have caught so I slowed down a little.........and we both didn't catch a fish. So I turned the boat around and started heading out of the creek. I went back to fishing the bait at my much faster pace and caught 2 or 3 nice keepers. He was amazed that I was catching fish with my fast pace retrieve and he didn't catch a fish. I guess dead sticking, like many other techniques, has a time and a place to be successful......