Both Chip Hamilton and Preston Harden are specific in the presentation of the live herring to stripers and hybrids graphed under the boat. If the depth isn’t just right, they say, you won’t get a bite.
“Most guides use a countdown method of stripping line from the reels in 2-foot intervals to get the bait to the ideal depth,” Hamilton said. “If I mark the bait and fish at 30 feet, for example, I’ll strip off about 14 lengths to get the bait to about 28 feet deep — sometimes just a little more, but not deeper than 30 feet or whatever depth they are marked. I ensure that I keep the bait just above the stripers, not below.”
Harden does the same, and if he’s in a large area that’s relatively free of underwater snags, he’ll use the electric motor to move around to get on top of the fish.
“Often we’ll pick up a couple stripers real quick, and then they’ll move off,” Harden said. “But I can often find them using the electric motor by moving around. I’ll leave the bait at the depth I last marked fish, then adjust if necessary as I move over more fish. Many times while doing this, easing the bait back into a school of fish in a silent manner, the fish will go crazy and gang up and bite like wild. We can go from looking for fish to having fish hooked on every rod in a matter of seconds. Now that’s fun.”
Harden uses 10-pound test fluorocarbon Trilene line on his down rods and free lines. For his topwater lures he will use regular mono or, more often, braided line in 15-pound test to enable him to cast long distances but still have plenty of line strength.
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