Anyone been lately? I haven’t been in the freshwater in at least 3 weeks, probably longer if i could actually remember. Heard the herring are still in the rocks so gonna try and catch some on thursday and do some cut baitin mid lake. Never really done this before other than just killin time when i couldn’t get them to hit downrods. guess we’ll see what happens.
What depth do most people cut bait in. kinda had my eye on a spot in 30/40’ of water with 70’+ deep water really close by. Should i be marking fish on the bottom before anchoring or just be marking the fish “close” by? any help would be very helpful…
Years ago I used to do quite a bit of cut bait fishing, but mostly in the early spring when the fish were shallow off points. Double anchoring gets to be a bit more of a PITA in deeper water. A few weeks ago, I did some decent keepers on cut bait in about 35’. Last night we anchored in 48’…marked and caught a bunch on live bait just off the bottom, so I might would also look a little deeper right now than 30-40 as well.
I would look off the major points or humps that top out at about 35-50 ft. To save some time, bring up the lake map on your GPS before you go and look for some humps in the general area you want to fish and mark them so you have some likely spots to run straight to. When you find some fish, just double anchor to hold the boat still and fan cast around the boat.
I’ve caught plenty just throwing the bait on ice until I’m ready to fish, but ideally I like to keep them live right up until I’m ready to cut them up and bait the hook.
BTW, the size of the bait seems to be improving every week. Just a bit longer than they have been, but definately much fatter.
'07 198 DLX Carolina Skiff
FS90 Suzuki