Deep Deadsticking - Part 5
October 1, 2008
By Jeff Gustafson
I live on the shoreline of Lake of the Woods in Canada, one of the finest bodies of water anywhere. It offers world-class fishing not only for bass but walleye, pike, musky, crappie, lake trout and perch teem in the waters of the "Woods" (as Lake of the Woods is known). It's my home. I am as much a denizen of this place as are the fish swimming outside my door. When I was 10 years old, for my Christmas present that year, my parents got me the entry for the Kenora Bass International, a large, open team event on the "Woods". By 14, I started guiding for various resorts and lodges on the lake. That's been my life, having grown up fishing for a living. I am a bass angler more than anything else, although subtle insights gained by fishing for all the game species we have up here has made me a better bass angler.
Author Jeff Gustafson with a nice smallie that fell for a minnowbait on the deadstick.
I write regularly for fishing magazines in Canada and across the Midwest including publications such as Ontario Out of Doors, Esox Angler and Just Fishing. I write weekly fishing columns for Northwestern Ontario newspapers and have appeared on TV shows including Fishing the Wildside and In-Fisherman Ice Guide TV.
Everything has trade-offs though. One of the things that comes with living on the "Woods" is we have a short open water fishing season. So from May through end of September, I make hay while I can by fishing as many tournaments as possible throughout Ontario, Wisconsin and Minnesota. This season (2008) I won the Kenora Bass International ($30,000) and I did not miss making a cheque in all 12 bass events I entered. It's a good life.
I just got off the road from fishing the last four weekend tournaments for 2008. While catching up on my email, I was pleasantly surprised to find Gary Yamamoto's Ezine Newsletter series on deep deadsticking waiting for me. It was actually good to stay inside for a few days, out of the wind, away from the the sun and the waves, not rocking on a boat, curled up on the couch just relaxing and reading the previous weeks' stories about deadsticking.
The deadsticking stories perked my interest as this is a technique that has become popular and productive in the Canadian Shield lakes that I spend much of my time on. We have some big open team tournaments on Rainy Lake and Lake of the Woods that are super competitive. Through these tournaments, new techniques are born and shared and deadsticking is a hot one up here now.
So, I am writing this part five to the series, which is on how we deadstick up here. I hope I can add a Canadian twist that fellow readers and followers of Gary Yamamoto's Ezine Newsletter will enjoy hearing, and maybe even put into practice on their own home lakes. I am pretty sure this could work for smallmouth in many other areas.
The biggest event that takes place in Northwestern Ontario is the Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship at Rainy Lake. James and Bill Lindner, both sons of In-Fisherman founder Ron Lindner won that event back-to-back a few years ago by catching massive suspended smallmouth. They proved that big smallmouth on Rainy spent a lot of time in open water chasing smelt and that they are catchable. Now when someone trounces a field that's the best-of-the-best in such a hotly-contested tournament, no one's going to let them rest until their secrets are revealed (even if only partly). The first time they won, we didn't find out to much, and didn't mind. They're good and they got lucky - maybe. We could live with it. But after their second win in a row, being who they are, the Lindner's released a video about the new technique that they had discovered and showed anglers some of the tricks they figured out to catching these fish.
Once the word got out, anglers on Rainy and Lake of the Woods began to experiment and learn how to catch these fish too. The necessary ingredient is smelt, which are not native to either of these bodies of water, but they have taken up quite a niche in recent years and fish are eating them. After smallmouth finish their spawning process sometime in June, they begin to make their way offshore and if the conditions are right, they suspend and follow the smelt around.
The reason I say if conditions are right is because it does not happen all the time. At least not to the point where anglers can take advantage of this suspended bite every time they go out. The Lindner's were the pioneers of this deal on Rainy and Ron has confessed some of the key points to the whole system. Water temperature is definitely the biggest key. Water temperature determines where the thermocline is and smelt need to stick close to it during the summer months. If the weather is hot and calm for a few days, then the thermocline gets deeper and the fish abort the open water for shallow water. A hot weed bite will prevail all the time under these conditions. When the wind blows and temperatures drop slightly, then the thermocline seems to get higher in the water column and bass will chase the heck out of the smelt. Rainy has big open water basins, and the wind seems to shake up the water enough to affect the thermocline, causing it to move up or down on an almost daily basis.
Ron Lindner believes that 20-25 feet is the key. If the thermocline gets around 20-25 feet, bass will be there and they can be caught. If the thermocline is deeper than this, then the smelt will be deep and the bass just don't seem to be present, or at least catchable.
Jeff Gustafson with big suspended smallmouth caught in August on Lake of the Woods
Tournament anglers know all about it now and a lot of guys will weigh big bags when the deadstick bite is working. What makes a good deadsticking day? Wind for consecutive days, especially out of the same direction is going to get smallmouth offshore chasing smelt. Sun or clouds don't seem matter a whole lot, but the wind is key. Also, we are talking about BIG schools of smelt on these lakes. There will be schools that are 100 yards long and sometimes they are so thick that your electronics will not even be able to read through them. If you can find large schools of smelt above 20 feet, there will be smallmouth around. The smelt mark really easily and they just look like "little fish" on the screen. Other clues that may indicate this deep deadstick bite may be happening are a slow shallow water/weed bite. If the fish are not on shoreline or tight to 'typical' bass structure, then there is a good chance they will be suspended offshore. A good place to start looking for bait schools is relatively close to structure. Most of all, WIND definitely helps.
When the Lindner's first started to catch fish on this offshore deal, one of their techniques (which they did a TV segment about) was drifting with the wind while dragging 6-inch white ribbontail worms on 1/16 oz jigs behind the boat over vast sections of water between various pieces of structure.
Once smallmouth are located, then the deadsticking deal comes into play. Deadsticking baits vertically over them has proven to be the best method for big catches. There are a number of anglers up here utilizing this technique now and they are all using basically the same presentation. A heavy jig, generally 1/4-5/8 ouncers that will keep the presentation vertical all the time. Onto these jigs, anglers are adding various types of jerkshad or “fluke” style tails. However, anything in the 3-6 inch range that is thin and straight-tailed will work. In terms of Yamamoto baits, this can include some of the thinner Senkos, Kut Tail Worms and the Shad Shape Worm
The reason I can pin the “deadsticking” label onto this technique is because we are holding these baits under the boat and we're not moving them at all. The key is holding your rod as still as possible. It is incredible how these smallmouth can pick off a bait and know it is there. They can see much farther than most folks think. I do a bit of guiding and many of the guests I take out can not hold their rod still, they always have to jig it or shake and they just do not get as many bites.
Jeff Poperechny with a nice Rainy Lake smallmouth that ate a jerkshad hanging under the boat.
The heavy jig is key because it keeps the bait as vertical and still as possible. These fish are looking up, looking to intercept smelt schools, and I do believe they come to investigate the boat from afar in the open expanse offshore, spotting the suspended baits harbored beneath it. Generally we are hanging our packages 8-15 feet down, no matter how deep the water is. I like to hold my rod up high above my head at first as this lets me set the depth where I want my bait to be. When I hold my rod high overhead, my bait meets the water surface when there's typically about 12 feet of line out. I engage the reel then, and that is how deep I drop my bait. Usually we start doing this on some type of structure, a hump, point, some sort of uprising, edge, sunken hill or high spot. Eventually we'll drift off the structure and start to transition over into open water, and this is where the big bites happen. Every day, you just need to get a “vibe” on where the fish are at. Are they tight to structure or are they suspending around but off structure? Another key is that they are not aimlessly suspending, they are doing it in some sort of proximity to structure most of the time.
I have watched smallmouth on my electronics rise from as deep as 35 feet up to 12 to eat my bait. I would not believe it I didn't watch it happen.
Sometimes, I think these offshore fish are attracted to the boat. Suspended fish can surely see the boat when they are striking only 12 feet below it, but this does not seem to negatively affect bites. Smallies are just inquisitive by nature and I truly believe they come to check the boat out. Whether they consider the boat as some sort of floating cover with baitfish holding under it, who can say. Whatever they've got in mind, these bass are coming up from a deeper level or distance where they're at, moving in to swipe at the baits as soon as they perceive them deadsticked under the boat.
We also catch BIG walleyes and pike on the deadstick as well when this technique is hot.
For bass, the deadstick can last through end of September.
Gear to Use
- Tails: Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm, Pro Senko, Kut Tails. Other fluke and jerkshads will work too.
- Heads: Northland Mimic Minnow Jig or other center-balanced jigs from 1/4 to 5/8 oz
- Rod: 7'2” medium Shimano Cumara spinning rod
- Reel: 2500 series Shimano Stradic
- Line: Ten pound test braid with a 6 foot long leader of ten pound test fluoro. Deadsticking so close under the boat, any lighter line can be snapped too easily.
Big smallmouth like this 6 lb+ are possible when you target suspended fish with deadstick rigs.
Click here to read more:
- Part 1: Deep Deadsticking
- Part 2: Deep Deadsticking
- Part 3: Deep Deadsticking
- Part 4: Deep Deadsticking By Jim Gildea
- Part 5: Deep Deadsticking By Jeff Gustafson