Sunday the 16th on Pool 4

Hi guys,

Took my 7 year old out today from 11-5. Long lined char and ft shad raps up and down the buoy line at Head of the Lake and managed two good saugers then couldn’t get any more. Ran down to the solar panels and trolled with jointed #5 shad raps down to the historical marker and back a few times. Marked no fish in shallow (8ft) but did mark a bunch out at 12 ft so trolled them a while without success. Then pulled stickbaits behind planer boards up on
bay city flats. Nothing. Finally went back to head of lake and drifted 3 ways with Phelps floaters and crawelers. Nothing. Feeling rejected yet again and ready to put my boat up for sale, I head back to Colvill only to hear several guys talk about their multiple limits dragging jigs tipped with crawlers and how this is their “go to” presentation when water and flow is low. I don’t get it. Why is that the ticket under these conditions and where on the river would one try this technique? Shallow or deep, wood, sand, rock, inside turns, etc. Seems to me fish would be out in center channel with flow this low since they don’t have to fight any current. I heard someone mention Baldwinn Island. Why is that a good place right now? Can someome please educate me. I’m going nuts. My confidence is so shot I couldn’t catch a cold right now. Thanks for any help you can offer.

You are not alone my friend…I had read the reports and headed to Covell landing on Friday morning. It sounded as easy as falling out of the boat.
We stumbled around trying to find fish on the graf. We tried wally divers and raps along the bouys, we tried jig minnow in current breaks, we tried to find fish by going thru what was labled fisherman’s cut.
After 6hrs of nothing we put the boat on the trailer and went to the Croix…I just wanted to get some eaters.
We did pick up a few there.

The worst part of the morning was seeing the fish come out of the live wells of other boats at the landing at Covell…I mean good for them, but geeze…I felt about 2″ under the 15″ limit myself.

Dragging jigs on rivers is ideal when you have lower flow situations because you can present the bait at a reasonable speed. If you were to try dragging jigs in higher water conditions you would coast right by the biters that are present. Higher water concentrates fish on the shoreline current breaks and eddies, they will also hold tight to the bottom in the non-visible current breaks such as a sand dune, rock or log. This is when 3-way rigging can be ideal vs. dragging. 3-waying allows you to present the bait at a speed the fish can see it.

One other reason I believe dragging jigs in lower flow situations is more effective than 3-waying in most instances is the spook factor. Meaning, I am able to get my bait farther away from the boat in shallow water and make less noise doing so. Don’t get me wrong here cause a lot of guys do catch fish 3-waying in lower flows. The biggest mistake a guy can make while presenting a 3-way rig in a situation like this is to overweight your rig. There is less debris in the river and the fish are not glued to the nearest current break. Those who don’t have the knowledge or take the time to down size on there weights are just scattering fish with that big ol’ sinker dredging the bottom of the river.

Overall I think that dragging jigs presents the bait more naturally getting some of those less aggressive fish to snap. In most situations using the lightest weight you can get away with and still maintain bottom contact is the best but don’t overlook the heavy stuff at times. I have had days were 1/4oz jigs pulled down river will out produce a small 1/16oz jig.

You also asked about locations. This application works all the way down to 30′ of water as long as you adjust your jig size accordingly. Clams beds are hard the beat this time of year and thruout the rest of the summer.

I hope that I have helped answer you question

i did pretty good trolling shads at the bay city flats…i was using 10lb stren with my st.croix rod…..does anyone know when the maiden rock flats start to pick up real good?…good luck to you all

p.s. never tried draggin jigs before..maybe i should add that to my arsenal!!!

We fished Friday through Sunday. We found it tough at the upper portion of the lake and Sunday moved further down into the lake and pulled lead core and monofiliment with snap weights to get down further. Craw colored SR5’s clearly out produced anything else for us. We were trolling in 14 ft of water.

I know Clam beds are good throughout the summer and I have located a few of these over the last couple years by accident (snagging clams when trolling). When looking for beds how do you locate them? What do you look for on the graph? Is it possible to see the difference in bottom hardness on the graph? I have an X-125.