Watching Fish Ed this morning and Jon is bobber fishing again. Just wondering how many guys here bobber fish if they don’t have a kid in the boat? Personally it’s a little to slow for me. I like either casting or trolling. Bobber fishing for me is last right in front of jigging.
What do you guys do?
so the key word in your post was BOAT. the only time i use a bobber during soft water is right after ice out in shallow water. after that its straight line.
i cant get my kid to get rid of using a bobber. 
generally speaking you can feel a bite way easier without a bobber then waiting for movement from a bobber……….
Love bobber fishing. Ofcourse spring time is best and the weighted super bobbers are awesome for long cast with spooky fish. Summer if I’m vertical jigging I throw a bobber out for a bonus. By now my bobber is of the slip persuasion for adjustability. Also fishing up on cribs can be deadly on big eyes with slips late spring/ early summer on the shallow flowages I fish.
Fly fishing? Use water bobbers on your spin gear to get your fly out to the big gils. A few of my favorite presentations
Time and place for everything. If we are talking walleyes which I assume he was doing. Lighted bobbers at night can be a blast. I don’t do this as much. I do however power cork. It can be super effective especially on a lake like Mille Lacs. With today’s electronics it makes it more fun to me. It is like a hunt. I look for a particular fish and try and figure out which way they are set up and drop right on them. This is very effective for when fish start to scatter or get broken up into small pods. When you can drive up to a fish and your bobber instantly goes down it is not nearly as boring. I have also caught some of my best tournament fish on a slip bobber.
Nothing better than bobber fishing while out with a group of friends and families. It’s easy, no tangled lines, and provides multi-species action. I love not knowing if I’m going to pull up a bluegill, crappie, largemouth, smallmouth, rock bass, walleye, you name it.
Trolling can get to a be tiring sometimes and more work than fun as your eyes on the electronics trying to stick to a contour. Sometimes it’s just so nice to throw the bobbers out, open up a beer, and just relax.
2nd best feeling there is watching your bobber go under.
I’d rather get a stick in the eye than bobber fish. My friends give me grief about it. It should be outlawed. Unless you can use 2 lines.
Last year I started using the “Bobber with a Brain”. If you haven’t used one it is a lot of fun. It works on just about everything from sturgeon to sheepshead. It allows you to fish a bobber in deep water without the need for a bobber stop. I mostly fish cats and sturgeon in deep water. On the St Croix you can fish more than one line and I always throw out a line with a BWAB (Bobber with a Brain). It is a pretty simple set up and you will be surprised how effective it is. If you are getting “Skunked” put a nightcrawler under a BWAB and you will get the skunk out of the boat (everything eats a nightcrawler).
Nothing beats a great bobber bite…nothing! It’s mindless, exciting, and free’s up my hands for a cold one.
I’ve been power corkin’ walleyes on Mille Lacs for about 5 years. It’s a nice break from rigging. One day last summer was very good. About 75% of the fish I dropped on bit, even going from flat to flat. This year with LiveScope it’s going to be even more fun.
I love corkin. Sure wish my MN-FISH guys could help push thru the 2 lines.
I love corkin. Sure wish my MN-FISH guys could help push thru the 2 lines.
Look, EPG made a funny 
Good one!!
I’ll use a bobber to float a jig just off bottom as it travels with the river current. Sometimes this is much more effective than trying to work the same stretch of water with just a line and jig.
I’ll use a bobber to float a jig just off bottom as it travels with the river current. Sometimes this is much more effective than trying to work the same stretch of water with just a line and jig.
How do you keep the jig & bobber from drifting faster then the boat?
I find bobber fishing really relaxing at times. Mostly use them in the spring and fall.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Huntindave wrote:</div>
I’ll use a bobber to float a jig just off bottom as it travels with the river current. Sometimes this is much more effective than trying to work the same stretch of water with just a line and jig.How do you keep the jig & bobber from drifting faster then the boat?
Boat is anchored. I cast quartering upstream and let the float work downstream. Crank it in and repeat except cast a bit further each time to work new water on each pass. If I am catching fish jus keep repeating.
If not, reposition the boat and work a new stretch of water.
I used to think bobber fishing was boring. Having a place on Mille Lacs (and having kids) forced me to bobber fish more and it’s grown on me. There are many times it’s the most productive method and catching 20-30 walleyes in an hour has changed my perspective on it.
Lighted bobbers at night can be a blast.
There was a time when I was younger when almost 100% of my walleye fishing was at night with a lighted bobber.
My brother and I would start an hour before sunset and watch lighted bobbers until 1 or 2 am at night. It was extremely effective. Most of it on Mille Lacs, which isn’t legal anymore because of a season long night ban.
Nowadays, about the only type of corking I do is in the spring crappie fishing and most of that is without the use of any live bait.
I tried using a giant bobber with a big sucker on a quick strike for muskies a couple times. Talk about boring sitting there for hours waiting for jaws to show up. Plus the cost of each decoy sucker was a rip off too.
The last couple years I have been fishing a wacky rigged senko type worm under a slip bobber for smallmouth bass. It works really well and often when nothing else seems to work.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Eelpoutguy wrote:</div>
I love corkin. Sure wish my MN-FISH guys could help push thru the 2 lines.
Look, EPG made a funny
Good one!!
A guy can dream. 
I tried using a giant bobber with a big sucker on a quick strike for muskies a couple times. Talk about boring sitting there for hours waiting for jaws to show up.
you’re doing it wrong. 
bring a partner, run two suckers, and let the iPilot drive the boat along a contour line. it frees you up to play dice or cards in the boat!
it’s hard to beat the simple joy of bobbers at dawn for bluegills.
Yea except sucker fishing for muskies is for suckers 😅
As a kid I liked bobber fishing, then had a good stretch where I couldn’t stand it and almost always casted, even for spring crappies. Now I’m back to enjoying bobber fishing and even use a slip bobber set up on the river. Walleyes and crappies love fresh caught emerald shiners suspended helplessly under a float…
never gets old watching your cork sink, its just another method, but very efficient at times
Iowa you can get up to 3 fishing lines in the water so when conditions are right having 3 bobbers in the water can keep you very busy
If super bored, then get a space bobber. That will keep you active as you pull it and it glides away.
I’m almost always Bobberin’. But I enjoy fishin’ lazy too. If I ain’t Bobberin’ its because we are trolling.
I’ve been power corkin’ walleyes on Mille Lacs for about 5 years
Something I can’t figure out when people say “power corkin” is how they set their depth properly. I understand the concept is to search for fish on your sonar and then drop your slip bobber when you see one, but without using a weight to set the depth of the bait I don’t know how it gets in the strike zone. It’s not like every time you see a fish it’s at the same depth.
Something I can’t figure out when people say “power corkin” is how they set their depth properly. I understand the concept is to search for fish on your sonar and then drop your slip bobber when you see one, but without using a weight to set the depth of the bait I don’t know how it gets in the strike zone. It’s not like every time you see a fish it’s at the same depth.
When Power Corkin’, we are using 10′ rods, fairly easy to eyeball the depth. When Power Corkin’ on Mille Lacs, you can be +/- a couple feet. We just toss em out the back and almost instantly will catch a couple right away. We’ll wait another 5 minutes or so and if no bites, continue to move on. It can be a lot of fun. Marking them then becomes the hard part.
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Look, EPG made a funny 
Good one!! 
