friday morn. Det. river report

Jigged for walleyes in the river this morning. me and three buddies caught 18 eyes by 10:00. lost four others. Also landed a 40 inch musky and still had time for a little bass fishing.

JoeC.

[perchjerker]

Good job! Thanks for the report. What part of the river were you fishing?

We are still doing good in the lower river handlining.

[fatboy]

fished the river around calf island fri. night(9pm until 2am) caught two eyes.for some reason it was a very slow night.three times before this got my limit!(bottom bouncers w/single hook drift rigs w/crawlers & stinger hooks) perchjerker can you tell me a few things about hand lining ? like how high up and how far back do you run your leads ? how much weight ? do you use spoons or pencil plugs ? do you put any crawler on them ? how fast do you move ? how deep of water do you fish ? ok so its alot of questions. i would be grateful for any that you could answer. thanks---

[perchjerker]

No problem fatboy.
I usually run 2 leads, the lower one about 8 ft and the upper 20-25 ft long. I run the lower one on the bottom and the longer one 3 clevisis up from bottom. I have been having the best luck latley with a McGinty with a piece of crawler, raps and poppers also. I have been working the channel edges in the river anywhere from 15 to 26 ft. I did ok out in front of lake erie metropark, but there was tons of weeds there. Actually, there are lots of weeds everywhere, now. But the weight picks most of them up before they reach the lure.
I use homemade weights, either 1 1/4 or 1 1/2 lb.

[fatboy]

thanks perchjerker! i don't know what those mcgintry are but i'll find out.i'm going to set something up to try chugging(before i spend the 300 for two reels)on the river. a fella at work told me that on st. clair he uses a piece of wood with a double wishbone on each end about a foot long. said he wraps his 130lb. test on it and ties this to a shank.

[perchjerker]

A Mcginty has a propellor on the front, and some kind of cloth body with a treble hook sticking out the end. The ones I had the most luck with were red and yellow with dots on them. Sounds weird, but the fish love them.

As far a reels, check ebay. As a matter of fact, there is a gold cap on there now. I think its currently about $25. I have been watching them lately and they usually go for about $50 or so.

[fatboy]

thank you ! next time i go to andy's i'll get a few. i did not think about ebay. i'll check.I was going to buy two a&s reels earlier in the year but every one was out at the time.so i spent the money on trolling rods and reels.i have to buy two so when my dad goes i have him covered.me and him had had some (river rats) handlining reels twenty years ago but the boat we had was becoming a finacial burden(broke down all the time)so we just quit. any idea of your speed when handlining ?

[perchjerker]

I usually do- 1-2-2.5 going up current. As far as the setup your buddy uses, I think it might be too much hassle in the Detroit. The bottom changes so much, you are constantly changing depths trying to keep good contct with that irregular bottom. I would think your line would want to get tangled up on the floor of the boat. I dont know how the St Clair is. maybe its easier to fish.

[fatboy]

yes i think the same thing. but the line wraps around the one foot long stick that has a wishbone notch at each end not in the boat floor. i know its not as good as the reels but i thought that it would fish the same.need to let the wife cool off from my 500.00 a month rigging costs:)

[johnp034]

Hey Fatboy, I used to do some chugging in the North Channel, up in Lake St. Clair. One word of advice, I don't think you want to use 130# test line, or when you get snagged, your going to lose your chugger, all your line, your wishbone and you with it, if you hang on to it too long! Use 25-30# mono, and have a bolt or something sticking up on the gunwales of your boat so when you get snagged you can wrap your line around it very quickly, and let it break off! And make sure you don't wrap it around your thumb or any other body parts, or you'll lose them, too! Another method we tried, was to use a very short, very stiff casting rod, with an old bait casting reel on it. Not as hard on the hands and a lot safer in case of snags, and it worked pretty good with a 3-6 oz. chugging iron. Seriously, I have considered chugging in the Detroit River, but just haven't had the opportunity to try it yet.

Good Luck,
P.S. How you doing, Perchjerker?

Johnp034