Fish Sniffer On Demand Digital Edition Issue 3611 May 12-26, 2017 | Page 33

VOL.36 • ISS. 11 HOW TO Continued from Pg 24 A variety of large live baits work well for drifting, but magnum size shiners like the one pictured here are among the very best. Pin them through the lips and let the drifting begin 50 to 90 feet back. With shallow plugs keep the boat in 6 to 8 feet of water. With deep runners work the 12 to 15 foot zone. Your plugs should hit the bottom occasionally, but don’t go dredging. Drifting Live Baits Live bait drifting for Delta stripers is great fun. There are several baits you can run with. Bait shop shiners work well, but they are pricey. Mud- suckers work too, but they tend to die easily. If you want to buy your bait, by all means go with one of these two. If you’re willing to commit to catching your own bait, small 2 to 3 inch bluegill and 4 to 8 inch pike minnows are prime baits that big bass will seldom pass up. These baits can be caught with a light spinning rod and a tub or worms. And the fact of the matter is that hunting down quality baits can be nearly as fun as the striper fishing itself. Whatever type of bait fish you choose, they are all fished on the same three-way rig. The rig consists of a 3-way swivel with a 36 inch 20 pound fluorocarbon leader tipped with a 1, 1/0 or 2/0 live bait hook tied on a perfection loop connected to one of the swivel’s eyes. To the second eye a short drop- per of 10-pound mono is attached with either a loop or cheap snap on the other end. Your sinker is attached to the dropper. The dropper is made of light line, such that in the event you should snag it will break before your leader or main line. Your mainline attaches to the third swivel eye. Using this rig teamed with a 1-ounce sinker, pin a live bait on the hook through the lips and walk the rig through likely areas from a drifting boat. Sand bars are prime spots as are channel edges. One of nice things about drifting is that you can work water that is too deep for conventional trolling approaches. Spinning gear can be used for this work, but medium weight baitcasting gear teamed with 30 lb braided line works best. When you get hit let the rod load up before setting the hook. Still Fishing For Trophies If you want to land a really big striper still fishing with either live split tails in the 8 to 14 inch class or chunky pike minnows in the same size range is the way to go. If you can get a live bluegill up to about 4 inches long they will work too. For this type of fishing you’ll have to seek out and catch your own bait. 31 May 12-26, 2017 FRESHWATER For Delta striper trollers, both shallow and deep running minnow plugs are go to baits. Author Cal Kellogg’s favorite trolling bait is a deep running Yo-Zuri Crystal Minnow like the plug shown here. Be sure to tip your plugs with plastic worms for maximum effectiveness. These baits are fished on the same sliding sinker rig that all Delta bait soakers are familiar with, but with one main difference. Instead of pinning your bait on the hook, you’ll need to thread a 25 to 30 lb fluorocarbon lead- er through the bait using a bait nee- dle. Obviously, you want to keep the leader just under the skin to avoid vital organs. See the illustration for a full understanding of how this might look. Once you’ve identified and an- chored on a likely area to cross paths with a big bass, such as a sandbar edge, tule edge or channel edge (note edges, edges, edges!) it’s time to thread a bait and toss in your line. Af- ter that success is all about patience. Fish with your reel out of gear, but with the clicker on. When a fish takes these big baits you’ve got to let them run a long time before setting the hook. Typically, they will take the bait and move off. Then they stop and take off again. When they’ve really taken the bait, you’ll note a big uptick in the speed of the fish. When they shift gears and take off it’s time to set the hook. This type of fishing is typically done with an 8/0 to 10/0 hook. If you use a standard octopus hook almost every bass you hook will be throat hooked and die. If you use a circle hook instead, most of them will be hooked in the corner of the mouth and will be highly releasable. To set the hook with a circle hook hold the rod 90 degrees to the running fish, engage the reel and let the rod load up. You’ll feel the fish start to fight and know the hook has locked up. As a final point about releasing bass using this approach, don’t go with super light tackle. You want gear heavy enough to bring the fish in with- out totally exhausting them, hook’em, land’em, snap that photo, revive’em and send them back down to spawn and fight again another day. Like I said up top, I won’t fault you for keeping “the fish of a life time”, but remember that these days a replica of a big fish looks just as good on the wall as a traditional skin mount, especially if you have a photo to frame and display with the replica! Vibrax ® New Candybacks Are Oh So Sweet. Put bold, beautiful color to work for you with all-new Candyback Vibrax ® fi nishes. While the blade exteriors fl ash the power of their genuine silver fi nish, the blade