Bass Enthusiast - Techniques of Fishing Wild Shiners

Home

Tackle Box

Professional Articles

Techniques of Fishing Wild Shiners

Your Ad Here

Techniques of Fishing Wild Shiners

Hugh talks about the massive bass that an angler can get by using wild shiners with a Carolina Rig.
Techniques of Fishing Wild Shiners

A variety of techniques can be used to get bass to bite. Trolling is a good technique. Anchored techniques are effective. Free line techniques are effective whether trolling, drifting, or anchored. Wild shiners fished in a Carolina rig technique are effective. And using a strike indicator technique can be used trolling, drifting or anchored.

Trolling is an excellent method of fishing wild shiners. Drifting is basically another method of trolling. Drifting amounts to turning the boat side ways and covering an area as wide as the boat is long. Trolling is going in the direction of the nose of the boat and covers a narrower path than drifting. Boat control greater when trolling.

Basic trolling involves hooking the shiner through the lips; using a strike indicator and allowing the rig to follow behind the boat. The strike indicator could be a float or a balloon. The distance between the shiner and the indicator should be about two feet. The distance is really not important. The shiner will come up to the top as the boat moves forward. The strike indicator is for the angler not the bass or bait. The strike indicator lets the angler know the general location of the bait and allows the angler to more easily know when the bait has been eaten.

Put one shiner out the back. One out each side. Then move the boat S. ..L....O...W...L...Y. Not even as fast as the slowest your trolling motor will go. The idea is to draw the bass up out of what ever they are in and get them to bite. Slow moving bait gives the bass a longer look; more time to catch up; and more time to eat the shiner.

PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR BAIT!!! The bait will tell you worlds of information. DO NOT TRY TO THROW LURES WHILE YOU ARE DOING THIS!!! Listen to your shiner. When your shiners follow the boat- they are not afraid. There are no bass! A scared shiner will move about. What scares the shiner is an invitation to be dinner by a bass. If your shiners move to the left-the bass are to the right. If you shiners move to the right the bass are to the left. If your shiner hops out of the water- the bass is right under him waiting for him to come down. If the shiners move- STOP!!!! Give the bass a chance to devour the bait. It more than one of your shiners is eaten- ANCHOR!!!!

You have located a school. If the school does not bite when anchored- pick up the anchor and troll through the area again. Some times the bass want the shiners moving.

Wild shiners can be trolled without the strike indicator. The advantage is that the bass might like the shiner better this way. The disadvantage is that the angler has to pay greater attention to what he feels in the line to know what the shiner is doing. Also, when the boat is stopped the shiner might go down into some thing that the angler can not get it out of. Like a tree or grass clump.

Trolling and drifting wild shiners are techniques that can be used to catch and to locate bass. Trolling is a method to use when the bass are mobile. It is a method to use when the bass are scattered. Trolling is a method to use to locate a group of bass . Sometimes the shiners will get scared in the same place during several trolling passes but not get eaten. The bass are in that area. The bass need to see the shiners for a longer period of time in order to bite. Stop, anchor and be patient. Place the shiners out hooked in a variety of methods. By using a variety of hooking techniques the angler is searching for the most effective method. When one method out produces the other methods switch more bait to the most effective method.

A wild shiner was conceived in the wild. It grew up in the wild. Some catcher person caught it and sold it to a tackle shop. The wild shiner knows what a bass is. It knows what a bass is going to do to it and it does not want that to happen. PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT THE WILD SHINER IS TELLING YOU!!!!

Throwing lures and trolling wild shiners is a hope and a prayer. It is a hope some thing hits the artificial and praying something hits the bait. GET SERIOUS!!! DO ONE OR THE OTHER!! You will be more successful.

If you know where bass are located, think you know where bass are located, or for some reason are convinced one spot is the place to be- anchor up. Use two anchors. Hold the boat steady. Usually, anchoring up wind so that the lines are flowing with the wind in a straight line is the method that allows the bait to stay in the strike zone the longest.

Areas where anchoring works best are always places you know there are bass. Such places could be spawning areas, scattered grass areas, bass routes, wood clumps or grass mats. Anchored fishing allows the angler to use more shiner techniques at the same time. The angler may use a strike indicator, free line, Carolina Rig, or use a combination of methods.

Around a topped out mat start with a strike indicator and a dorsal fin hooked shiner. You want the shiner to swim under the mat. You will know this because the strike indicator will be flush against the mat. YOU WANT THIS!! If the shiner will not go under the mat when hooked under the dorsal fin it is usually an indication that the shiner is getting invitations to be dinner from under the mat. Many times a bass will stalk a shiner until the bass has determined an appropriate time to eat the shiner. Let your bait swim and see what happens. Many times an angler will take a bait away from an interested bass because the bait is not where the angler wants it to be. Patience is to the anglers benefit. A moving shiner means a bass is near.

When you anchor--put out several rods. When you are in an area that bass will be swimming through it is important to maintain bait in the water at all times. As the bass swim through the bait will begin to be eaten. Setting the hook may result in the bass spitting out the bait and remaining hooked. Another bass will hit the shiner spit out. To keep catching it is important to immediately put another shiner where the last one was hit. Yes, even while the angler is fighting the bass. This keeps the feeding frenzy going. It s like throwing gasoline on a fire. More fuel-more fire. More bait- more bites.

A HUGE shiner can elicit a strike. When you have a shiner that is constantly run off from an area and not bit - it is possible to elicit a bite by throwing a HUGE shiner in the area. Remove all others from the area. Let the huge guy swim awhile. The bass will try to figure out how to hit it. He will stalk it. IF he does not hit the HUGE guy and times passes then bring in the HUGE guy and throw out a much smaller one. The smaller one will be immediately be hit. HUGE guys will also serve to hold a school in your area. The bass in the school stare at it trying to figure out how to eat it. When the HUGE guy gets hit you better catch the bass- it s a big un.

Using a strike indicator while dorsal fin hooking the shiner allows the shiner to go under the mat a limited distance. To get the shiner to go under the mat further take off the strike indicator and FREE LINE the bait. Whether the shiner is hooked in the nose, tail, under the dorsal fin, or above the anal fin the key is free . This is a slack line fishing technique. The angler is a line watcher NOT a line feeler. If you can feel the shiner, the line is too tight. Leave slack in the line. Pitch the shiner out. The shiner will land with his head pointed away. He should swim away. Give him slack line. Feed him line. Let him swim under the mat. The indication of a bite is a hop in the line or a slow steady pull. A bass will pull down the rod tip while the shiner may pull the tip down but he can not hold the rod tip down. Pulling too much on the line will cause the point of the hook to embed itself into a piece of structure-like wood or grass. Then the shiner will not be able to swim. A bass might hit. However, chances of the bass getting the hook and the bait are reduced. FREE LINE is an advanced techniques. Free Line takes patience and observance to be successful. The angler is required to read the line. Very few anglers become competent with this method in one outing. Once mastered FREE LINE will produce more and larger bass. Many times Free Line Techniques produce bass when other methods produce nothing.

In current anchor so that you are able to use the current to your advantage. Methods that work are casting into the current and letting the current bring the shiner back to you. Or casting across the current and allowing the current to carry the bait. Both methods are effective . The key is to be sure the shiner goes through the strike zone in a natural manner.

Carolina Rigging a shiner is excellent in current. The weight causes the shiner to be near the bottom. This is the key!!! The bass will not always come to the top to strike. Always hook a shiner in the nose when Carolina Rig fishing. Any other hooking method will cause the shiner to go backwards in the current and drown itself. If your shiner dies, hooked in the nose, the current will cause the shiner to look alive. The use of a swivel, bead, and brass weight in your shiner Carolina Rig is not necessary. The weight is only to get the shiner into the deeper water. Use a Bell sinker or an Egg sinker. Fold the line. Run it through. Loop the sinker. Experiment with different distances between the bait and the weight to determine the optimum distance.

When using a strike indicator there are two basic types. First is a float. This is a hard material of some sort. The advantage is that the float is always a float. The second type is a balloon. It is important to blow up a balloon a small amount. A needle fish will pop a balloon. A balloon will expand as the sun heats it. A balloon will go through vegetation or wood much easier than a float which is an advantage. Another advantage of a balloon is that it will pop and come through some things that will hang up a float. This is important with a MONSTER is on the line. And the final advantage of a balloon is that it costs about two cents compared to 69 cents for a good float.

An effective method of fishing a wild shiner is to pitch it into the holes in the grass. This is using a wild shiner like a lure. The idea is that when the shiner goes into the hold a bass in the hole, or in the grass around the hole comes out and eats the shiner. Keep the line slack. Monitor the line. And when the line hops or has a slow steady pull- a bass has eaten the shiner.

An angler can anchor, troll, or drift. Within each of these the angler is able to use a strike indicator, free line, or Carolina Rig. And an angler has a variety of methods of hooking the shiner. This is not guess work. It is a matter of studying the prey ; its habitat and applying what the angler believes to be the strike producing method. And that is the start of the thrill of the catch.

Hugh Crumpler