Drag Em Out/ Rainy River Critters

First and foremost I want to the thank James Holst & Jason Halfen for the Mastering Jig Dragging DVD. What I learned from that DVD put fish in the boat today when all else was failing or scoring low points in the efficiency bracket, and I tried it all. With downstream winds of 25 mph, the sun to cloud strobe light effect and a river full of walleyes hunkered down on the edges rocky deep holes today most presentations where tough. I could have gone ultra heavy and hoped for a few hard biters to not notice ½ oz ball of lead hitting them in the teeth or I could have spent all day constantly running the foot pad on my trolling motor with every current swirl and wind gust attempting to stay somewhat vertical in those rocks…or I could high speed drag. A bigger, faster and deeper version of all the tips and tricks demonstrated on the Jig Dragging DVD.

I needed to present a bait twenty plus feet down over but not too far above those nasty rocks and I needed to get enough speed down current to get the plastic tails moving generating reaction strikes drawing out fish that where tightly nestled amongst the rocks. I figure this would be a hard day on the jig collection but to my surprise I only lost one jig to a swimming rock. (more on that later). To get one of the most aggressive bites I ever seen on the Rainy River I took James’s and Jason’s instructions and tweaked them for the deep holes. I ran gold 1/8 oz. jigs fitted with 4” orange and brown grubs to match the color and size of the native minnows while hoping the smaller profile would dive a little deeper on 6 lb super line with its micro thin diameter. I did also have to mess around with just how much line is needed to put a jig and plastic that deep going as slow as I could in those terrible winds, a 0.3 mph faster than the river current was the best I could handle even pulling a drift sock. I took myself to a sandy snag free area of the same depth for a few practice runs. That trick revealed three boat lengths was the magic starting point for the initial cast…yup we are long lining now and I felt confident enough to head for those deep rocks.

I pulled well above the start of the rocks and got my high speed drift going and put the new shiny jig right where I though it should be and sure enough I snagged right off the bat! “Man I screwed that up” I mumbled as I attempted to pull the jig free from the rock as the rock started to shake and took off up stream, really fast! Tail hooked sturgeon! I floored the trolling motor and dumped the drift sock to no avail. My reel was spooled within thirty seconds of what must of looked like me trying to swat flies with my rod as the tail thrashes went from side to side. That brute must have been slaloming rocks like a Olympic skier they way it was thrashing about. What a mess. Try number two with new line and a new jig was much better. The result of my first attempt of deep jig dragging in current was actually amazing.

I hooked up within minutes of starting this trick and continued to catch fish all afternoon. I must have looked somewhat odd as I went flying by three times the speed of the guys trying to slip drift and four times as fast as the guys snagged up. Although I averaged three fish per pass and the pass was only ½ mile long; let’s not forget I am moving 2.1 miles per hour! It may have not been by the book and it may not be what we are supposed to do but give it a try and see just how well jig dragging using the tactics demonstrated in the jig dragging video with a little tweaking for the Rainy river will do for you with this seasons walleye bite.

All in all I do have to report the bite is starting or has started. Today I was upriver by Frontier dragging those jigs around and found mostly smaller fish ranging from 15"-20"; my guess is they are the males that start the run and the bigger females are still working their way up. From the reports down river that sounds like the case. Either way the time is now for those looking to combo trip walleye and sturgeon.