Fished sat afternoon with my son and we had a strange day. We would see fish hanging near the bottom or see no fish at all and drop lines into clear spots next to trees, not really big creek channels but pockets in coves and such with water 70-90 ft and we would have fish rocket to the baits and then just swim back down. I know this happens but it happened to us for over 3 hours. I would guess 10 different places this happened. Our bait was pretty good and was staying alive as we were dropping to 35 and 40 ft with no trees and around 28 and 30 when we had trees under us. We did have a few pull downs but did not get a fish in the boat. It was a good day for me as we had so many fish charge the baits but it was still very strange that they would hang out for a minute and then swim back down. It was a good learning day as we hit a lot of spots looking for fish. Did not find any big schools but did see a few groups of 5 to 6.

Mack, I have had that happen a bunch. Today was the first day i used the 0-2 system, I believe it helps. Our bait was changed out every 10 to 15 minutes, most of our fish hit within that time, or the bait would be dead. We caught 9 or ten 2 to 5 lbs this AM, but they were fun. Just my 2 bits. Stan

Same thing happened to me today - that's why I went to leadcore. I think you're better off trying to get a reaction bite when that's going on. You could try power reeling too - I didn't power reel because there wasn't enough fish on the screen.

I can see that reaction bite would be good for this. I did not power reel, did not think to. Thanks for the tip.

Stripermack, I was in them so thinck you could sware every rod that went down would get hit the second it went down. We had to go below them and reel up into them and they would hit the bait and we would just quick wind about 3 turns and it was on.

Dan, You will have to show me that! Now that you have room I will have to hitch a ride with you sometime. Thanks for your input I am getting better all the time.

Do you power reel with your downline setup or a different jig setup?

If you really want to get the hang of it, I believe Mack Farr came out with a DVD just about power reeling (as well as other instructional videos). Clay also power reels on occasion, so if and when you go with him, he could show you the different methods.

To keep it short, there are 2 main methods. A downline rigged herring or a bucktail tipped with a herring also works. Drop the bait below the fish and reel through them at various speeds.

Check out Mikemad's video also

http://www.bigfishonguide.com/index_files/Videos.htm