I posted this on the smalljaw forum but not a lot of traffic there anymore so i'll paste it here as well. Hopefully Rick can tell me what I'm doing wrong on the LB.
Last Friday was my first trip to Dale this year which is very uncommon as I usually spend some time there in June/July. Been staying mostly on Cumberland this year for some reason. Anyway, myself and my 11 year old went early in the AM and fished all day. Took about half the day to figure out what water to eliminate and struggled a bit but did manage to boat 5. With one exception where I caught the smaller sm, most shad I marked were 45-60' deep with no fish marked with them that I could see. My fish were in the first 3rd of the creeks or at the mouth of the creeks although I know some caught them back in the creeks as well.
16-17" smallie on jigging spoon
20 3/4" smallie on jigging spoon
19" fish on shakey head
20.5" smallie on a shiner.
My son really wanted to fish the shiners but I just can't make myself do it exclusively especially when I didn't know really where the fish were until later in the day. Let me ask some of you live bait fisherman for some advice on how we can increase our hook up ratio. We probably had 6 or 7 strong pull downs but only boated one on the shiner. Here is how I do it which obviously isn't working.
My setup: 8lb line spooled on a medium action spinning rod set in a rod holder. 1/4 oz weight pegged probably 2 feet from a 1/0 or 2/0 circle hook. Drag backed off so that a fish taking can basically take with no pressure. By the time we get to the rod and tighten the drag, the fish is usually gone. The 1/4 oz weight allows me to still fish from the trolling motor with my baits albeit quite slowly and keeps the shiners from dragging ineffectively shallow behind the boat. Any advice on a more effective hookup method that still allows me to fish from the front? Different hook, tighten down the drag vs loose, etc..?
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