Line questions

[ebijack]

This has gone off the original topic about line.
IMHO, active/feeding fish will typically bite the best/fastest. But, trolling you are looking for a reaction bite. Doesn't matter if the fish are high or low. Find the fish that react. More fish are caught suspended, but most lines trolling out in the lake are suspended, most not all. Hundreds of lines/baits. Guess what, more fish are caught suspended. Drift fishing has a bit different results. Since one rod is always dragging the bottom. Another topic.
After fishing like many for most of my life. I look for fish that want to bite. I always cover the water column. Being limited on rods/lines/persons compared to Keith running 22 lines. I'd have to say most days out on the water, the biting fish depth changes where in the water column thru out the day. Up/down. Yes bring one or two rods set to the active biting depth. But leave the others where they are. Way to many times, the hot rod goes cold and if you are not still covering the water column you have to start over. Not knowing if they went high or low.
Example: One guy in the boat only has 1 or 2 fish on their side of the boat, The other side is almost limited. Then it changes, filling the limits on the low fish count side of the boat. And bigger fish. I'm not going to get into which side of the boat has which direction of currents etc. That is another topic.
I do know if you put the right bait infront of fish sitting on the bottom. You can catch them. And they are not "active/feeding". Again, reaction bite, not feeding.
Just my experience.

[Capt Eric]

This has gone off the original topic about line.
IMHO, ..... Being limited on rods/lines/persons compared to Keith running 22 lines.
I do know if you put the right bait infront of fish sitting on the bottom. You can catch them. And they are not "active/feeding". Again, reaction bite, not feeding.
Just my experience.

Sorry.... no disrespect here, but I had to jump in - because I've heard this claim before...... people think Keith (Pooh Bear) runs too many lines sometimes. Wrong. I've been on the boat, worked the boat, fished next to him, etc..... you all see us out there chewing up the same water quite often. It's 2 rods per person, just like everyone else. 6 man crew, himself, and a mate = 16 rods. Typically that means 6 rods on each board and 2 Dipsy's on each side. I run the same setup. Some days I may run 7 + 1 on each side. If I have a short crew, then I'm short rods. Same goes for him. And we get checked by the DNR just as often as everyone else.

And by the way, I'll take a school of feeding fish over reaction strikes any day... You can fish all day and pull a limit off reaction strikes, or you can pull a 6 man limit in 2 or 3 hours in a feeding school of fish. But in the end, the ONLY thing that really matters is having a GREAT, FUN, and SAFE day on the water!