Tough Go Yesterday

[Gone Fishing]

Bill I have never fished the grub vertically. Probably missing out but just not sure how you do it. Hoping some one can tell me if you just fish it like a drop shot, if you use a swimming grub head, and if the best luck comes by dropping it down and trolling slowly. Thanks for any input.

[Hogfan]

When vertical fishing a grub I've always used the XPS heads from Bass Pro and once I find a school of shad on my graph I'll just drop the grub down through the school. Sometimes I'll shake it like a drop shot and other times I'll jig it like a spoon. It all depends on what kind of mood the fish are in that day. I'm not sure how Bill does it but this tends to work for me every once in a while.

[Bill Babler]

Most people that fish the grub up and down, are doing this to either shad balls or suspended fish. It will also catch fish on the bottom and is a slower presentation than even a spoon. Just lower your grub with either a 1/4 or 3/8 oz head to the bait or fish, watching it fall on your locator. Fish it in almost a still or slighty shaky presentation near the fish.

The bite is a tap or the rod tip just starts to bend. Don't lower the rod and snap set, just life the rod and start reeling. I can usually see the fish eat the bait, so I know, and am ready. This is another one of those presentation where good sonar, is a must.

The other presentation I was speaking of is deep swimming a grub on channel swings. I have had the boat in as much as 150 ft. of water for this presentation. Look at lake maps, and where the channel comes tightest to the bank, for 100 yrds. either side of this area, and thru the channel swing area, cast your grub parrell to the bank, and let it fall, Slowly swimming it back to the boat, and then reeling it almost streight up when it gets to the boat. Most of these locations are timbered, with pole timber and you will loose grubs. Sonny Chapin of Chomper Lures has won a fortune on the rock doing this. I believe he pioneered the technique.

As fish start to rise in the water column they move to these locations where the channel swings to the bank and suspend trying to get some warmpth and then migrate from there to pre-spawn and feeding location. Its a good place to start looking early in the year.

This is hard fishing and nothing but days on the water make this work, You really have to hunt for these locations and then not get discourgaged with little success. When you find them it is fantastic, almost like crappie fishing, one after the other. good luck

[captmac]

Fished the Campbell point area Wednesday from bridge to big creek, found monster schools of shad and some die off in main lake pockets and coves did th jerk bait jig and finness stuff but no luck. Got to spend the day fishing with my best friend so the day was far from wasted