Hitting one of my favorite tribs of the Ohio river today it was greenish in color and cold 36 degrees and with the Ohio River falling pulling water out of the trib it was cold all the way to the mouth.
Massive schools of big fat shad were schooling up thick enough to walk on at the mouth even with all the bait fish present the schools of whites or hybrids were not to be found. Some days its all about the color and other days all about the speed of the retrieve then other days its about the pause but today was all about cadence of swimming it then popping it then letting it sit on the bottom for a couple seconds then a ripping it up and WHAM, SLAM, and THUMP!
Working the lipless crank this was the only way they would bite, I played around with seeing if a slow retrieve near the bottom but no, if it wasn’t that specific cadence, almost dancing the bait the fish just didn’t care. It was a mixed bag of fish whites, hybrids, spotted bass, crappie and saugeye most of them relating to wind blown bank that had a ledge at 5 ft and 15 ft the seem to be relating to these ledges no necessarily where the shad were the thickest.
Finding that cadence turn a one or two fish day into 30+ fish day it just reminds me its not about one thing you do to catch fish but figuring out the dance that brings the bites. It really seems the fish would hit it after it was paused on the bottom and then strike it on the up take.
Nuts and Bolts :Air temp 40s, mostly cloudy, water temp Ohio river 45 in trib 36, wind gusts 10 mph
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