Boat control important key to successful fishing
A moderate, but steady breeze added an unwelcomed chill to the 33-degree air.
Through stiff, cold fingers, I felt the line tighten as I jigged the metal blade bait over the small, submerged hump. The six-foot spinning rod loaded up under a heavy strain. A couple minutes later, my partner Dave Keith slipped the net under a fat, 22-inch walleye.
For over three decades, I’ve enjoyed the fine fishing that can be found over open water during the winter months. By fine fishing, I don’t necessarily mean easy fishing. Many years, winter weather severely limits opportunities.
Pushing things to the extreme challenges one’s ability to deal with the elements. The payoff, however, is often made in some of the largest fish of the year. But the presentation must be precise, including controlling the boat when fishing key areas.
The reason cold water fishing can be productive isn’t that fish are overly active. Generally, as cold-blooded creatures their metabolism is low, but they do occasionally feed.
However, in water temperatures on the negative side of 40 degrees, species such as walleyes, bass, northern pike, muskies and crappies can be found concentrated in certain types of areas, depending on the type of waterway you are fishing.
When things work out well, you can be fishing over a lot of them. Which is where precise boat control comes in.
Take, for instance, the opening scenario. The place being fished was a high spot along a long, relatively deep point, a little rise that topped off in 30 feet of water. If we were to catch any walleyes, it was important to hold the boat directly over the small hump, giving any fish there plenty of chance to respond to a lure.
The wind was blowing, but by heading the boat into the breeze with the bow trolling motor — and using just enough forward thrust to counter its affect — I was able to maintain the correct position. Had I set the boat upwind of the hump and allowed the wind to push the boat across the structure, we would have moved too fast to properly work the spot. The point here being, when you want to thoroughly work an area, fish into the wind rather than with it.
Large rivers like the lower portion of the Allegheny (the Ohio and Monongahela, too) often furnish some of the best winter fishing opportunities. The current helps keep the water open. Deeper holes out of the main flow of things hold walleye, muskies and the occasional sauger, crappie and yellow perch.
Typically, there is plenty to catch in these holes, but again it’s a situation where boat control is important.
Consider a deep hole that’s located below an incoming stream. The low-current area, where it’s most likely to find walleyes, is around 75 yards long. Walleyes are low-light feeders, but we can expect to catch some throughout the day if we efficiently work the pool hoping to contact scattered pods of ‘eyes.
The proper boat control approach is to work with the light current, allowing the boat to drift with it, while presenting a bait directly under the boat. By taking in or paying out line, in response to depth changes, you’re able to keep a bait or lure within inches of the bottom, which is the prime zone in this scenario.
Needed adjustments to your boat’s drift, as caused by wind and current, are made with the trolling motor.
Drifting over deeper holes is the best way to contact river walleyes during the day. But toward evening, it’s likely the fish will move shallow to feed, in this case toward the mouth of the incoming creek.
It’s a common situation on the lower Allegheny around the mouths of Mahoning Creek, Crooked Creek, Pine Creek, Garretts Run and Taylor Run, to name just a few.
As twilight approaches it’s best to simply anchor the boat and cast for walleyes as they make a late day feeding run.
Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle
