something a little different

[J White]

The last couple of weekends have been pretty tough fishing for me,
WINDY, cool, muddy water, and fish stuck tight to the bottom.
The wind doesn't usually bother me trolling, but when it's blowing 25+
and you are trying to hold a minnow still right on the edge of a drop off...

Well, after fighting the battle of trying to spider-rig for several hours,
keeping the nose into the wind and constantly adjusting lines to try to keep the right depth, I'd had enough.

I put all the rods up except one, cranked the motor and dropped it into reverse, and went backing into the wind, running the motor with one hand and bumping bottom with the rod in my other. Picked up 6 pretty quick,
after having fished all morning for just 1. I couldn't believe the motor
running didn't scare them, I was only in 11-12' of water! I guess with
2 foot waves crashing, it gets drowned out?

Anyway, went back yesterday and started fishing this way from the beginning, but I turned the head on my transom trolling motor around so
I could pull backward with it - the wind was not so bad, probably 15-20.
Ended up with 17 in about half a day's fishing.
I was really surprised, the boat will back straight into the wind with very little steering, and all it takes to hover over a spot is to adjust the speed on the TM. And the rear end of the boat doesn't bounce near as bad as the front. Nothing new here, folks been fishing up North like that for years, but it is
new to me. Not setting the world on fire, but got enough for supper
without stroking out over boat control :D

[prchjerker]

J welcome to the world of back trolling.:D My new rig is suppposed to be here in a couple weeks.20 foot of tiller with a 175hp Optimax got to say Im getting alittle anxious.PJ

[mrwillis]

Thanks...that information might come in handy for all of us to try the next time the wind gets nasty.

[ceb]

As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. I also think that people overestimate the how spooky crappie are to noise. My grandfather and dad would play a radio in our ol' jon boat...and we always caught a lot of fish about 12" deep in the buckbrush of an old oxbow lake.

I was out fishing Saturday as well. The wind was howling down the ol' oxbow with nearly 2' swells. The fish were holding on the bottom in the old river channel. A chain works well in this situation. I use anchor rope with a shackle on the end. Then you can attatch as many pieces of chain needed for the particular windy situation. During windy situations, the chain will let you pendulum back and forth while moving forward very slowly. Like with back trolling, the weight of the back of the boat absorbs most of the waves and makes the front stable enough for titelining a spider-rig.