What’s the best way to drift fish? I see a lot of Amish guys catching them drifting I just never got into it we always trolled for them..
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What’s the best way to drift fish? I see a lot of Amish guys catching them drifting I just never got into it we always trolled for them..
We've had luck with Erie Dearie's with a crawler when drift fishing. The rock of the boat gives it a nice "jigging" appearance. I generally troll as well, but my dad always drift fished.
All I do is drift fish. I admit trolling in the central basin produces more fish; however, I enjoy the feeling of catching the fish as opposed to reeling in a fish the boat has already caught. I use worm harnesses. I catch most of my fish on a gold blade with orange beads. Erie Outfitters sells a nice blade called "baby walleye" that works well too. A half oz weight usually does the trick. 3/4 oz weight if it is rough. Hope this helps and enjoy this wonderful lake we have in our backyard.
I first started fishing erie we drift fished the western basin. it was common to limit by noon. we just used weight forward spinners loaded with a whole crawler. we used spinning gear and let out 100' or so of line. but sometimes we let out less or more. without counters it was just a guessing game. we would stand our rods against the side of the boat and let the boat do the work. but as the water cleaned up by the zebra mussels and the fish numbers dropped the catching slowed. so we switched to trolling to catch the fish. but with the numbers being way up drifting should be great again. just start with 3/8 and 1/2 oz weight forward spinners loaded with a crawler and start drifting.
if your not catching fish don't be afraid to use 1/4 oz lures. sometimes the fish will be shallow. I have had days the 1/4 oz was catching 90% of the fish.
like said above its much more fun to catch the fish drifting than trolling. I only fish a week in july on the central basin now where trolling is still the best way to get fish.
I did well last week drifting. Spinner rigs, going back out to do the same tomorrow.
I did well drift fishing worm harnesses on the 18th about 45ft deep straight out from Rocky river. Got a limit of 18-24" fish in a few hours.