Merced falls,

Headed out after work Monday, got to the river about 4:30pm. The overflow from Mcswain Dam is putting out white water, and the river is really up and moving. I paddle up to the bottom of the overflow and drift down. I would alternate drifts, one with a night crawler and the next one with various lures. (castmaster, copcar, panther martin, ) Caught 5 planters on night crawlers and Zilch on the lures, but there were some guy's fly fishing and also catching planters.

Great way to start a week,

Craigh

Although I now live in San Jose, I was born and raised in Modesto and have fished that area quite often.  That drift usually proves to be fruitfull.  Were they rainbows or have they switched back to planting the brookies?  Way to Go!  Will have to hook up next time I am in town visiting family.

dilbeck

when you drift with the crawler, how do you rig it?

not sure about craigh, but as for myself, I use a worm threader.  I usually cut the worm in half, thread it onto the threader, and then slide the worm onto the hook.  Usually a little will slide up and over the hook onto the line and a short section will hang past the hook.  This accomplishes 2 things: a natural look and completely conceals the hook.  Not sure if this makes sense, I can post a picture if it will help.

dilbeck

That's how I do it less the threader, I also will use a sliding sinker. I have caught nice Brookies, but these were Rainbow.

dilbeck drop me a note when your heading this way, company's always welcomed.

Craigh

I have fished Mc Clure and Mc Swain but never the river sounds like fun.
Jack

dilbeck, thanks for the answer, I am now used to threading a worm for trolling, thanks to a post on the board earlier.

But I have not done much drifting with a worm.

the other day I was drifting a whole night crawler, I did not thread it, just hooked it in the middle twice on a size 1 circle hook
and left both ends to move around. I had a 3/8 oz slider sinker 3 or 4 feet from the worm. put it 35 feet down in what
I hoped was the thermocline and where I had caught a fish the previous day while trolling. On GPS I was drifting
about 0.4 mph. But no hits that day.

what I was wondering about was weight and leader length and any other tricks of the trade. sounds like it's pretty simple.
But that is not the first post by craigh where he gets fish on worms on the drift so I thought I'd see if there were any tricks.

You are correct in your assessment of it sounding pretty simple, it really is, at least the way I do it (I don't do anything that is not simple) .  In your explanation, it sounds like you are doing everything correctly, just the fish weren't cooperating .  I would have bet money on you being successful.

Since you had mentioned that your familiar with threading a worm for trolling, it is similar to that set-up, minus the flasher, dodger, or whatever one might put in front of the worm.  I previously forgot to mention the minor detail about the swivel and sliding egg sinker .   I don't know what size sliding sinker I use, but it is the smallest I can find.  So ultimately the set-up looks like this: sliding egg sinker (or 2, depending on how hard the wind is blowing), swivel - just as craigh uses, and then 24-36" of leader to the hook.  Then of course I thread the worm as previously stated.

Another thing that is accomnplished by threading a worm (that I forgot to mention in the previous post) is that when a fish takes the worm, it is almost assuredly taking in the hook too.  In my days before threading, too many times the fish would get the worm and not the hook.  Now, anytime I use a worm, it is threaded.

dilbeck

Jm, dileck Here's a pic of night crawler set up. I don't ever use a whole worm, I can usualy get 3 hooks baited out of one worm.  I've tried using split shot, but I think the fish can feel it and back off. My leader off the swivel is only about 18" to 20" and the smaller the better on the sliding sinker.  In moving water I'll cast up river and do a slow reel in, just trying to take the slack out of the line so I can feell the strike. I've caught alot of fish within 2-3' of the yak on a drift.

Hope this helps,

Jack that part of the river is nice because, it's hard for any other type of boat to get in. I think tomorrow I'm going to go back.

Craigh

Dude, way to go, nice report.  I grew up about 15 miles from there.  I've fished that big pond below mc swain hundreds of times in my life with great success.  Favorite lure?  Brokenback Minnow, all natural green & black colors.  I've caught striped bass below shaffer bridge in quarry ponds also using small xrap chrome & blue. 

I'm pretty stoked to see a report from that area.  I use to troll the minnow lure behind a little 12' flat aluminum boat late 80's and early 90's.  I would do better than my stepdad who would troll a flasher and worm setup like you mentioned.  I'd be real interested to go back and see if that same presentation would work.  I was nailing 14 to 18 inch rainbows with that lure.  Thanks for the report. JTF..

Went back Thur's night and caught 8 released 5, keeping the bigger ones for dinner. I never thought of trolling a little rapalla. I'm going to try that next time I go.  The 3 bigger ones, shot out of the water like a big bass, and put up a nice fight taking line.  Again I threw different lures and no hits, caught everything on night crawlers.

Craigh

My last three trout came on a 5cm shad rap preceeded by a set of seps microlight flashers, so it does seem to work.
Two of the trout had real shad in their stomachs, the other was a very ambitious dink, I let him go.
obviously losing a $6 rapala is more painful than a less than $0.25 hook/sinker.

J

Picked up some shad raps today, i'll try them tomorrow.

Craigh

well, you do well on the  trout, it'll be interesting to see if you can get those things to work for you. 
hard to beat a worm, but you might get some slightly bigger fish on the shad rap?

seems like 1.9 mph is about the right trolling speed for those things, but they seem to have a pretty wide range.

A little faster than the worm tho.

I have heard 1 mph per inch of bait fish as a rule of thumb, so I guess that works there?

the box says 5-9 feet deep, should get the 9 feet with 100 feet of 4lb test @ 2mph? 

you could troll up with the shad rap, drift back with the worm?  I find the more spastic my trolling, the better,  .

I have read that those 'banana plugs' the flatfish lures are good at slower speeds including drifts. never tried it.


J

I tried the shad rap today, and I caught 3 planters with the rap. (2 more on crawlers) The first one hit within seconds of the lure hiting the water, I'm definitly going to use it more. I did the standard drift, and trolled back up with the shad rap.

The rest of this week I'll be getting ready for Rock fishing...

Craigh