River Eyes, Reaction (Fast) Tactics

This topic is about Fast tactics (Reaction bite tactics) for river fishing walleye in the winter.
I find myself fishing very slow in the winter on the river.
Tactics such as these I tend to run (.2 to .5 upstream) (Current speed +.2 to .5 Downstream) Sometimes more sometimes less:
1) dragging plastics or jig/minnow
2) 3-way rigging (Cranks, Plastics, Live Bait, etc)
3) Dubuque Rigs, Wolf River, Miller rig…etc etc.
Or, I’ll be pitching a plastics, working a lipless crank like a blade bait, or pitching a jig/minnow….All of which I try to work at the same slow speeds I’d drag them. Slowly. Very slowly.
Hey, I’m just not putting the qty of fish in the boat I’d like to be…Time for the fisherman to change.
I’ve recognized over the years during different times of the year that slow tactics do not always put fish in the boat. In fact, many times of the year they are your worst tactic and things like speed trolling and other reaction type scenarios play out better. Fish are aggressive. You may think the bite absolutely sucks, then you speed up to find out that it is an awesome bite and you’ve been working the fish too slow. Typically that revolves around water temp and whether it is increasing or decreasing. Except in our stagnant winter water temps I’m at a loss as the temps do not fluctuate much to indicate fast or slow…and I usually just fish slow…Typically with success, but not always.
Another thing I’ve noticed in the winter with ice fishing is much the same, you aggressively ripping that jigging rap and the fish are chasing it up 3-10 feet (Ice fishing)…Or is it a suttle jiggle that gets these inactive fish to bite. Their mood definitely changes in lakes with same water temp. I just need to know what tactics you guys run in the winter to get those aggressive fish to go, via boat in the river.

This brings me to my question, for river fishing only….What are your “Fast” “Reaction” type tactics.
The slow stuff has been slow fishing for me. I’m on fish. But catching very few. Monday I got a 21”, last night a 30” (Lost at the net!! Darn!) Fishing P3. It’s time to ask the winter river experts how fast you’ll run when you want to find out if the fish are aggressive or not?

Thanks gents.
Andy

Pool 3 was slow for me as well the last couple weekends. I like this topic though since I HATE fishing slow. I would say late fall through spring I fish two baits probably 95% of the time. Those two baits are a jigging rap and a ripping rap. I work them fast and cover a lot of water. There are days when it doesn’t pay, but more often than not if people can get bites dragging minnows and plastics I can normally get fish on those more aggressive baits as well. Have a good color selection in the boat since that really seems to be the key to getting the fish to really eat the bait instead of just swiping at it.

Not much help here. Ive been working on slowing my presentations the last few years. .2, .5 seem to by good speeds and that is not very fast. Have also played with spot locking on locations and pitching with ulta slow retrieves. Sometimes even dead sticking lures.

Guess 1mph would be a fast presentation. Somedays i think even drifting with the current is to fast.

Hiker, standard rippin rap cast and retrieve??
And are you vertical with your jigging raps or pitching and bouncing?

1 mph up stream got me a few nice ones last night. Too bad the camera man (me) sucked. 3-way & Moxy

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I cast the rippin raps and rip and pause back to the boat as well as vertical. Jigging raps I mostly vertical jig, but last weekend the 2 eyes I caught on Sunday I was pitching it to a small relatively shallow current seem and ripping it pretty hard. When they ate it there was no question they wanted it. Both fish had the entire bait in their mouth to the point the rap couldn’t be seen.

By the way fishBlood I see you on pool 3 all the time. I’m the guy with the tiller Crestliner with a Suzuki. Looks like the cold night in the boat paid off for you yesterday, congrats!

Please say hi next time you see me!

Thanks for the info

Good topic! One thing I noticed last time on the river (approx. 2 weeks ago), was the stomachs of the fish we cleaned were PACKED with food- so really do they have a reason to chase, esp. mid-day. Personally, that is why I think at times “speeding up” in winter would be something to try. A reaction bite is not necessarily a pure feeding response, but more a reflexive action without thought process occurring. Long time ago, when Dean ran the bait shop, he had 3 baits laying on the counter 1) a ringie (or like bait) for low light active feeding periods, 2) a mini paddletail for mid-day (giving the fish a snack) slow, methodical presentations and 3) a bladebait for a reaction strike..pulling the 3-ways at 1 mph, or faster, as stated in a previous post is an interesting choice for reaction bite as well.
One thing to remember is, if what you are doing is NOT working, do something else!

You nailed it on the head doc. During the cold months the fish seem to always be fat and happy. Don’t let them think about it. At least that’s been what I tell my self to keep my confidence up when everyone else is crawling along.

Are you sure Dean had that blade bait on the counter for a reaction bite? Blades can work well for that but they also work extremely well fished very slow. To the point where they just flutter in the water like a wounded shad. Fantastic presentation for negative fish.

Fishing with James one early spring high dirty ugly water was snap jigging ring worms while dragging in 8-4 feet of water. We were also dragging jigs with Fatheads, live bait never got touched all day. Cannot say we killed them but I put a 28 1/2 inch in the boat. Day to Day and hour by hour have to keep changing up what you are doing. Even once find a bite it may change in the next 30 minutes, that is the way of the river.

Mike, Dean always had blades on the counter! You are right though, they can be fished slow well as fast. We pitch 1/8 ozers and barely lift them off the bottom.

Well it’s definitely interesting that nobody has chimed in with some aggressively fast tactics.

My jig and blade pitching abilities are pretty poor IMO, I tend to run heavier so I can feel bottom (especially at night when you can’t see line good) which means I run faster than I’d like retrieving them. I have tons of confidence in plastics and tons of confidence in my ability to drag plastics, but very little confidence when pitching… Anything.

Has anyone tried burning crank baits over wingdams in the winter? I thought this could be a deadly reaction bite… it is in the summer and through fall anyway. I like to position the boat on the down river side, cast over the top, and the fish seem to crush it just as it breaks over the top. I have caught fish on wingdams with this technique when nothing else works especially at low light when they position higher up.

Maybe this will have to be how I spend Saturday!

FYI if anyone tries this run your cranks perfectly perpendicular to the dam, or it becomes a very expensive day. I learned this the hard way when I still spent all of my time fishing smallies.

Nice hiker. Haven’t heard that one. But why not.

Reports of someone busting some ice up on the river today
Plastics
27″ , 9# Football

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Here are a few we found over the weekend pulling cranks. Think the fastest we where going and got hit was .5 mph. Sunday key speed seemed to be .4mph. Slowest I got them to go was .2mph. Then there was also those few that would hit when I dropped a rod tip and the line went slack or stopped the boat to deal with one fish and another rod went off. Fish where hitting the baits pretty solid at those speeds and for what we caught missed very few. That right there was enough to not adjust the presentation much.

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Nice Mike!
Cranks on a 3-way then?

I had a great weekend too

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Very nice. We just long lined them. Best part of the weekend was no one else was out.

Another key to our pattern was fishing the fart bubbles. Started chasing those bubbles on sunday. Thats when we got our doubles. Even went so far as chasing the larger bubbles for bigger fish.

And here we were making jokes about crab farts Sunday…

Yeah I haven’t seen a boat on 3 since Probably December

Maybe a dumb question but when you are going .4 mph are you pulling upstream or down? Also what is a fart bubble? Thanks

Sorry. Couldn’t help myself

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He’s pulling up.

Fart Bubbles? Everyone knows if you eat to much one of the by products of digestion is gas. Same goes for fish. They eat, digest, fart and bubbles float to the surface. Now that this is true it only makes sense that the most active feeding fish create the most bubbles and the biggest most active feeding fish create the most biggest fart bubbles. On calm days by watching the water you can see where the fish are, how hungry they are and which are the biggest ones by the bubbles coming to the surface. Natures fish finder.

And that there is how our grand parents found fish back in the day with out electronics.

Sorry for this post straying a little from the original question.

No Mike, thanks for the contribution!

Tell me more

I dare say trolling for fart bubbles may deserve its own thread but if there’s any other knowledgeable info on the subject best to spill it here.

Im no expert on fart bubbles yet. We were discussing how to tell what species of fish or maybe what they ate feeding on by the bubbles. That knowledge is way beyond my fishing skills.

Funny as this is we did actually target the bubbles in the water saturday and did catch fish. Some doubles off them and bigger fish.

Beans, beans, the magical fruit
The more you eat, the more you toot.
The more bubbles you see the happier you will be.

Good thread. My last two trips to P4 over the last week and all but one of my fish came on SSR’s trolled behind bottom bouncers. Can’t say I was killing them but we were getting nice fish between 18-23″. Much more productive than dubuque rigs or jigs/plastics. Wasn’t going fast though, but .5 to 1.0 mph using the cruise on I-pilot.

We got away from the crowds too and it was good to find our own fish.

ET

Friday and Saturday leadcore and taildances pulled up stream .7-1.1 very effective.

Sunday pitching plastics and spoons.

Hammered fish all weekend. 17-28.5″