Dubuque Rigging

Looking to fall back to dubuque rigging on the Mississippi River this up coming weekend. From what I understand, you typically pull upstream at less than 1mph. What is a desirable line angle to have when you are attempting to maintain contact with the bottom? Because I cant see being able to stay vertical in a high flow situation. Also, what determines the leader length you tie to the dropper and other presentation. Current? Any success stories would be appreciated.

we pull upstream at .5 mph or around there. i’m not a guy who must have my line at a 45 degree angle. in heavy current, i’ll go as high as 3/4 oz even 1 oz and try and maintain bottom. sometimes it drifts farther back and finds its sweet spot and thats ok with me. as long as i can maintain bottom at some distance with 1 oz, i’ll dubuque rig. if not, find a different location or try something else.

I typically start with a 12″ dropper and a 3′ mono trailer to a bare hook or small stick bait. thats enough line that if i break off i can rety. i’m comfortable with as little as 8″ on the dropper and 2′ on the trailer.

I use mono because mono floats and keeps that bare hook or crank up just a smidge.

we dubuque rig on the river almost 75% of the time. spring summer fall winter.

when falling back we just vertical jig with the rig back if we have bare hook (not with the crank can be disasterous). we used to switch rods but we find that even vertical jigging we get a ton of hits on the trailer hook.