Single Pole Lessons on the Red

Water falling on the Red, and backwaters starting to clear up. My friend and I decided to give them a try yesterday. He is much better at single pole jigging than I am, and I have had a hard time picking up on what he is doing that I am not and vice versa. Fortunately, yesterday the crappie were cooperative, so I got lots more chances to observe and compare. It really seemed to help. We caught about 25 crappie in 5-12 ft of water. Water was clear enough that we could se stumps about a foot under the water but no more.

Lessons learned. Depth control, depth control, depth control!! Most important thing. I was fishing below the fish. When I moved up a foot or two, I started catching them. Two stumps are better than one, and three is even better than that!! Don't be in too much of a hurry, but don't just sit in one place. That said, Move your jig some, but not too much, and try just letting it sit a while also. All of that worked at one time or another. Color probably matters, but it didn't see to be as important as the above. We caught most fish on black and chartreause, but alos on pink and chart., green and chart. We started at noon, so probably not the best part of the day, but certainly good enough.

We did try two other areas, one clear and one muddier, but didn't do much in either area. Lots of bait and gar visible in the area we fished.

Fun day! Great to get enough info to learn from!! Good time with a good friend!!!

Question: Any one have a good way of marking your line? I had a bobber stopper(the little red rubber one), but I had trouble seeing it.

I'm in the same shape. I'm learning to single pole in some of the bayous in my area. Maintaining depth is my biggest issue. I use a sharpie (permanent marker) to mark my line. Black and/or red has good contrast against yellow hi vis crappie line.

In the past I've used the green line bobber stop, don't cut the ends leave them long and easy to see. It can be used were it touches the water or where your finger touches it on the rod.

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Originally Posted by escout

Question: Any one have a good way of marking your line? I had a bobber stopper(the little red rubber one), but I had trouble seeing it.

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You can buy a braided line with five colors, one color per foot. Learn the sequence "BROYG". That corresponds to 1,2,3,4,5 feet of depth. Then it repeats. The colors are Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow and Green.

Good luck and tight lines.

Chartreuse is the common denominator. I have painted 1 ft marks on my pole to the first guide. Sometimes depth is a big factor


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Get you a small slip float cut in half, put it on with a small bead and your bobberstop. Slide it up and down. Use that for awhile and it will almost come by instinct after doing it a while.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by escout

Question: Any one have a good way of marking your line? I had a bobber stopper(the little red rubber one), but I had trouble seeing it.

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Try another color of those....BPS has them in packets with red, yellow and black.....those are the only stoppers I use....I use an oversize orange plastic bead between the stopper and the slip cork...sometimes I hold the pole up to the sky and I can see the stopper better.....

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Thanks for the replies!! I had a thought of something I might try. There is a relatively new fly fishing technique that uses a "sighter". That is a length of monofilament line that is wrapped around a dowel and put in hot water for 30 seconds or so, and allowed to cool. It sets in a spiral like a spring. I bet a piece of that in 10# florescent yellow would show up very well. I'm going to try the small cork, and just a piece of 10 or 12 # floro mono set at 4 or 5 feet.
Also, Greg Fenn of Camo River Guide Service has some good videos on you tube about using Academy lime green catfish line and marking it with a Sharpie. Also several videos on Panoptix Livescope, and on putting out brush piles.

Single pole is how I fish most of the time. Let the fish tell you how deep to fish. One of the most important things is to not just flip your jig out and let fall on slack line. You will miss a lot of bites but most importantly, you may miss depth fish are biting. Let your jig down by structure slowly. Some fish may be biting at 3 ft in 12 ft of water. Next stump the fish may be bite at 8 ft in 12 ftof water. Don't limit yourself to one depth, you will leave a lot of fish if you do. Recently I found a top loaded with fish that a had been catching 7ft deep in 11ft of water. That day they were about 18 inches deep in 11ft of water and I had to swim it across the top for them to bite. Every day can be different and every top can be different on the same day. Let your jig down slowly covering every possible depth. You will catch more fish this way, especially fishing behind someone.

I've been doing really well pitching a 1/16 oz weedless jig into laydown tree tops and working it through the limbs like you would a texas rig worm for bass. Been working pretty good!

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