reading current seams in the river

Mr. Holst and Mr. Dezurik.
I want to commend you two on a great show last week on FSN.

Can you explain more about current seams and how to read them in the river?

How does the current seam travel below the surface, say on the bottom of the river, when you see the current seam on top of the water. Is it a straight up/down line, does the seam flow parallel to the slop of the bank, or does the seam go perpendicular towards the bank.

Is a current seam in 15fow just as important, more important, less important than a current seam in 5fow?

Great question! I’ll start this one off with a simple observation to trust your eyes. One of the things I enjoy about fishing current is looking at what is happening on top and visualizing what this might look like under the water. Its a tough skill, years of canoeing Canadian shield river has limited my dependence on high tech sonar, etc. forcing me to begin with what Im seeing first then building a pattern from that point. Its really pretty amazing that what your seeing on top can translate into suptle and obvious bottom changes even deeper then 15 ft, making river fishing by far and away my favorite bodies of water to fish.

Looks like those guys must be away from the site now. Heres my take on your questions. The easy one 1st.

Is a current seam in deeper water more important than shallow water.
Both can be good and hold just as many fish. Shallow seams can be really good. My take on shallow water walleyes is that they are there most of the time to feed. Not to just hang out. If you can find shallow water seams very close to deeper water this can be a big plus.

How does a current seam travel under the water? Not all seams are the same and each will flow a little different. The only way to know if it is doing something different under the water as to what you see on the surface is to throw a lure in there. Also what a current seam is doing will change as river flows raise and lower. Some seams as you are fishing them will tend to wonder back and forth to. As far as how do they run compared to the shore or break. They run any way they want to run. Flow and bottom structures seems to dictate this mostly.

The best way to know if a particular current seam is holding fish is to throw a lure in there. If you dont find a fish the next step is to look at the structure of it and the surrounding areas and determine if you think walleyes would be using the area. If you think they should be there make sure and check back a few times to see if something has moved in there.

If you can get out on the water right now make sure and pay attention to the shorelines and make some mental notes for fishing high water in the next month or so. Lots of these rocks piles, humps and bumps you see on the shore now will be what you are pitching to a few months down the road.

Now I know that I’m no professor or Mike W but I look at it in a logical sense Something on the bottom is causing what you’re seeing on the surface ie tree limb, rock pile, boulder etc… but I’d have to believe that what ever is blocking/diverting the current is probabally creating some disturbance on the bottom too and thats why the fish are using it as shelter Just a thought

Now I’m just a rookie on fishing seams too; but one of the ways I’ve figured out to “feel” what a seam is doing is to toss crankbaits in the area you think you have a seam or a break of some sort going on. When you toss that crank bait you will definetly feel the current pulling, and sometimes pulling hard, on the crankbait. When you get into the area you want to be in the resistance almost completely goes away. That is often where those fish are hanging waiting for the current to wash something yummy to eat to them. A lot of times I will try to let whatever I’m throwing stay in that area for as long as I can. Crankbaits work real well for detecting those seams or breaks and are a good way to get an initial feel for them.

dd

I just pretend to be a professor! I’d add that any time you make a decision to fish out of the main current you are actually fishing a seam! I think most river anglers do this as a habit without considering that most of the time we are fishing either a large or small seam area.

What I learned from Mike and Steve D is that the really good river anglers get a sense for fishing the less obvious seams. I spent an afternoon with Mike fishing a smaller current break that I would normally have not fished and caught two of the larger walleyes ever. My goal is to become more astute at finding the smaller seams, these tend to push the fish into a smaller area making the biters easier to find.

Another way to learn-refresh how to “read” the current and it’s seams is to fish trout streams and small rivers…..
Not only fun,but educational
It really does correlate-somehow

Great Observation Sir That is deffinately a great idea and its also a blast

Current determines where the object is in relation to the visual seam on the surfice. Fast current the structure causing the seam can be 30 to 50 feet above the seam one sees on the surfice.

Depth allso plays the same roll the deeper the structure the farther upstream the structure will be. So the deeper the more current the farther up stream the structure will be from the visual seam on the surfice.

Sometimes, the best current seams are the least obvious ones. Not all seams are apparent to the eye. Here’s one way to find those tough-to-see seams.

Start with the boat positioned outside of the area that you suspect holds a seam. Drop your bowmount and turn it to a speed that just allows you to hold your position against the current. Now, start to creep your way towards the area that you suspect holds the seam. Once you hit the seam, the bowmount will pull you upstream, at least much moreso than it was when you were experiencing the full force of the current.

Trolling upstream with 3-ways is another way to find seams fast. Dial up your kicker until you’re creeping upstream at 0.2-0.3 mph. Now, steer left or right…once you hit a seam, you’ll see your upstream progress shoot up towards 1 mph. Slide back out and your speed will drop. Once you go through the seam a couple of times, you’ll be able to determine its position with good accuracy.

Shrek,

First off Thanks for the Kudos on the show! Glad you enjoyed it! I am sure James can confirm this, but we got plenty of shows on the horizon that will conentrate more indepth about river walleyes at various seasonal patterns.

To answer your question…(sorry for the late reply)
Everything that was mentioned here in this post was excellent information. Each angler has his/her way to identifying or reading water. Current seams are no different in a small stream than large river, just at different scales.
I personally like to attack current seams that are less than 10 feet of water about 95% of the time for bigger walleyes 12 months a year….so that right there helps eliminate alot of water for me. Whether it be a current deflection from a shoreline obstruction or a sand/gravel point underwater that comes up to much shallower water from deeper water. Any shoreline irregularities or drastic change in bottom depths will create a seam of somekind.

Dureing cold water periods (50 degrees and less)typically walleyes will not want to expend alot of energy to attack their prey so you will find walleyes in near slack water adjacent to a faster flow. As water temps warm, these walleyes and their metabolism crank up and you start seeing fish more and more in the current adjacent to these same current seams and utilize slower water to fall back on.

As many indicated above, sometimes these current seams are not that obvious to someone that is cruising by with their boat. IF you slowly comb the shorelines, you will noticed many more subtle seams that can pay big dividends. In the show James and I had to fish these more subtle seams due to the traffic on the water that day. This approach can be more of a run and gun approach with smaller spots.

Not sure if this helped or not! Hope so!

Great info!!!!!!
Thanks everyone!

One more thing that has not been mentioned here, Get your hands on a copy of “Mastering Plastics” (I think thats the right name??) that James and Dustin out out a few years ago. It gives some valuable information on how fish relate to seams and where they relate at certains times of day, current flows, etc. I’m sure there are a few copies floating around out there, but I don’t think it is being made anymore. As far as helping shorten the learning curve on the river, this helps a ton.

That and seeing James and Steve the day they were fishing for the show I am pretty sure I know where they where

Off topic a bit, but I started catching more river walleye when I started to think of them as trout. I had to throw all my lake walleye info out the window.

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Off topic a bit, but I started catching more river walleye when I started to think of them as trout. I had to throw all my lake walleye info out the window.

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That is a great analogy Dave…..

I second the notion about Walleye in river behaving like trout. The size of the stream can directly correlate in behiavior to a larger river.

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Another way to learn-refresh how to “read” the current and it’s seams is to fish trout streams and small rivers…..
Not only fun,but educational
It really does correlate-somehow

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I do that a ton!!!! Trout and walleyes seem to look for the same things in a river system no matter how big (or small) it is.