Active baitfishing in the river?

[Geezle]

I'm just wondering if there is a reasonable way to baitfish in the river aside from letting the bait sit stationary with a weight, like with a pickerel rig or something similar. I'm mainly targeting pike so I was thinking there must be a way I can drag or float a minnow/smelt through where I think they may be. I'm shore fishing so no trolling or anything of that nature unfortunately :o

[troller]

Try tossing a bobber upstream and let it float down. Works very well for the wife when she uses worms on the RDR :)

[Geezle]

I'll give that a shot :)

There's one spot in particular that I've been fishing where there's a fairly big pool where the current gets running back upstream. I think if I got my bobber in the right spot I could get my bait cruising around in circles there all day! :lol:

[gprime27]

I got a handy little device for river fishing. You can drag your bobber through the hole many times with a flick of the wrist. Works like a hot damn :)


http://stagevu.com/video/xgnywgzdnbkq

[Geezle]

So I was thinking about this topic again, and I got to wondering, what would be the best way to hook my smelt on to fish it under a bobber? :confused:

[WayneChristie]

push the treble hook up through the belly so the eye comes out the back, then hook on your leader. when it comes to pike, moving bait or bait stationary on the bottom can both work, but a lot of times they seem to prefer the bait just laying on the bottom.

[Geezle]

push the treble hook up through the belly so the eye comes out the back, then hook on your leader. when it comes to pike, moving bait or bait stationary on the bottom can both work, but a lot of times they seem to prefer the bait just laying on the bottom.

Duerr...I'm so used to baitfishing with a single hook I never even thought about using a treble :sign0161:

Slick idea Wayne, I like it! :oregonian_winesmile

[luckyme]

if I'm using 1/0 size hook or 2/0 single hook,just run the hook through the bait head (in this case smelt) and up to it's side.it's stay longer specially if you have to cast from the shore.

[BBJTKLE&FISHINGADVENTURES]

Here Jay , heres a few pictures I drew up some time ago .

http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii122/JOHN_CONROY/Jighead2.jpg

http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii122/JOHN_CONROY/Smelttreblehook-1.jpg

I like the first picture method . Especially with a slip bobber .

[jono88]

I would say give drop shotting a try. It's still more of a finesse method but your still working your bait more and covering water at the same time. for me it's been deadly for walleye. give it a whirl it's a great tactic.

[Mat]

I used a dropshot on the NSR this past monday and it worked pretty good. As long as you know where the snags are and can avoid them it works awesome. I was gettin lots of follow ups and i managed to pull in a nice goldeye on monday using a dropshot with a floating jig tipped with a grubtail

[Geezle]

Hum. I *have* been using a dropshot rig sometimes while fishing the river, but I've been fishing it in a stationary manner. Throw on a big ol' pyramid sinker and let it hang out like a pickerel rig.

So to 'actively' fish it is it just a matter of putting on maybe a cannonball sinker and dragging it along, for lack of a better term?


BBJ - the way you have it in your first little diagram is how I normally hook on a minnow. I was just figuring there was a different/better way for letting it float around, especially under a bobber :)