It’s known that fish relate to, feed from and generally live near the bottom. There’s the security of the water overhead, there’s the close proximity to food below and often the bottom composition such as a large rock can provide relief from possible current and relief from the sun. There are a lot of things going for such a little talked about place.
With the common knowledge that fish live near bottom, I’m always amazed that when people fish, they don’t give the bottom a little more consideration. Now that’s not to say that all fishing should be done right on bottom, far from it, but if a person were to work that area from the bottom to a couple a feet off bottom, they’d catch more fish.
The easiest way to fish bottom is obviously with a jig dropped overboard and plenty of walleye anglers do just that, but sometimes trolling and covering water is the more effective approach. Then how do we maintain contact?
With walleye that’s all been figured out by using the bottom walker and spinner rig system. That is specifically designed with the bottom in mind. Even the jig, however, doesn’t have to be a static presentation. A cast jig, retrieved so it drags along bottom will work wonders.
But how about using a fly for trout and lake whitefish? Summer whitefish are notorious for living in or just above underwater weedbeds. It’s one of their favorite summer hangouts. To troll a fly right where they’re living employ a sinking line and pull out lengths of line counting each pull as you troll along. It may take 15 to 25 pulls, but eventually you’ll feel the line tugging at the bottom. You then know exactly how many pulls it took to get that deep. Now reel in the line, clean off the weeds and let out the line less a couple pulls and you can be fairly confident you’re trolling just above bottom and around all the fish. That’s what we’ve done for both lake whites and trout and we’ve done extremely well.
Attention towards fishing your offering on or near bottom will pay off big. You’ll be catching more fish and look like a star.