Reefs And Near Shore 4-18-4-20

[ERIE REBEL1]

Fished the OGF outing this weekend with a couple of buddies Fri. through Sun.Fri.Was a little slow for me as I only managed two eyes.We fished mainly Toussaint Reef and Locust Reef.Fish were mainly caught on Purple jigs.We caught nine for the day.We started Sat. on Locust I had my first eye five minutes after we sat down.Locust was a parking lot.It was hard to set up a decent drift to hit the top of the reef due to all of the other boats.We left Locust after about an hour while adding one more eye.Headed in to fish the shallow water off Wildwings.We picked up two or three more in thirteen ft.of water.Purple and Butterscotch did the damage there.After the wind died we went back to Toussaint and finished our day out there.I was limited by noon.We made it back in just as the storm blew in.We ended with ten.Sunday we went straight out of channel and set up in eleven ft.of water.I was limited in one hour.The boat was limited in just a little over two hours.Butterscotch did all of the damage Sunday.I used maily half ounce the whole weekend.Yeah the water is still dirty but the fish are biting well.

[PCperchhunter]

Do you fish straight down or do you cast out and jig it back to the boat? Were you using large minnows or small ones? I saw some guys using small minnows on the stinger hook instead of a large minnow on the jig. Wondered if that was better?

[ERIE REBEL1]

I always jig straight up and down.As for the minnows for us it seemed the larger the better although we did take a few without any minnow at all.

[PCperchhunter]

Appreciate the info. We took a few on jigs Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but the lack of wind made it hard to drift. I have to admit I'm a lot better dragging a harness than I am jig fishing. Have a lot to learn yet. Some boats nearby were getting them hand over fist while we had to work a long time between fish.

[wallenharms]

Went out this past saturday 4/19, tried the casting out at first, but wasn't nessasary. Just jig straight up and down, very your jigging strokes. Try longer ones 1-2' stroke, making sure to feel the jig all the way down as the fish may hit on the down stroke, which in this case very light so you would just notice your jig stop falling. As well with short pumps, just 3 to 6".
We noticed as the wind front came in and we were drifting faster to do short pumps only 2-3".
Minnow size doesn't matter, they will hit a small one and a big one just as well, and even just using the body. What matter's is color and size. Very your color through the day if they seem to shut down. As well a slow drift would use a light jig 3/8-5/8 oz. And in a fast drift 5/8-1 oz.
A key thing that really helped we found as a tip was to use a ball bearing swivel with a foot leader, really cut's down on line twisting.

Good luck and keep a tight line!

[jkingfish5]

If you use a 2 or 3 foot leader when you snag up you will not have to tie the leader on as much as you would with a one foot leader

[ERIE REBEL1]

When I started fishing on Friday I had about a three ft. leader on both of my jigging rods when I got home Sunday both of the rods leaders had dropped to about one ft. Did I lose any jigs due to snags NO.This was due to changing colors and weights to find the best set-up.You just can't go out there and stick to one jig the whole time and be successful.You have to find out what the fish want.And this can change several times during the day.BE Ready to change when your bite changes.