Lose Less Gear, Catch More Bottomfish! Leave a reply
It’s no secret that bottomfish associate with structure on the ocean floor. When dropping gear onto submerged structure like pinnacles, rock piles, and elevated plateaus it’s easy to spend more time tying on new gear than working productive water and actually catching fish. I ran into a gentleman in the tackle shop the other day that was loading up on jigs and various other bottomfish gear. When I asked him how the fishing had been he replied, “The fishing is great, but that catching has been darned poor. We spend more time re-tying than we do fishing.” Aha…help is on the way brother!
Here’s a couple of pointers to lose less gear and put more fish in the boat the next time you find yourself on the bottomfish grounds. First and foremost, always try to find the top of the pinnacle and mark it on the gps, as this will always be the starting point and where to begin dropping gear. Ling cod, rock fish, sea bass, yelloweye, halibut, and various other bottomfish will usually hold on the lee, or downstream side of submerged structure. This conserves energy and gives them the advantage of ambushing prey as it washes past the pinnacle. Working jigs and bait down the back side of submerged structure and thru this zone draws strikes and keeps the gear in the feeding zone. If a drift is made without a strike it’s easy to reel in, return back to the top of the pinnacle, and make another drift, perhaps moving over slightly on the pinnacle to cover some new ground.
By dropping the gear on the front side of submerged structure, however, it’s far too easy to overrun the pinnacle and snag all the gear on the face of the rocks, losing valuable time and even more valuable gear. Even if the drift of the boat is checked by back trolling into the current the odds of snagging up in this scenario are pretty predictable. Spend more time in the fishy zone on the downtream side of rocky structure and you’ll put more fish in the boat, more fillets on the table, and keep those hard-earned dollars in your wallet.
