Dragging My Life Away
Dragging is a great technique that allows you to cover a lot of water in search of fish. It also allows you to fish uneven bottom terrain and present your baits effectively in rough water conditions which is something I have struggled with while suspend fishing. One of my fishing goals for 2018 was to get better at dragging for catfish. I had two objectives to meet in order to accomplish this task.
The first was to come up with the best possible dragging sinker for my needs. If you watch my youtube channel, you know I am a big fan of the Larry Muse dragon tail sinker. Those sinkers work phenomenally well and are the only reason I have been able to drag baits with success in the kayak up to this point. They aren't perfect for my needs though. The ideal dragging sinker for me would maintain the properties of the Larry Muse sinker by allowing the top of the sinker to ride higher in the water and pulling through obstructions with ease but would also be slightly heavier for trolling at faster speeds, not require air in the sinker tubing to float the top end, and be made of a material that is more pliable in cold weather/water.
It was no easy task to reinvent the wheel. I spent a considerable amount of time trying and failing all summer long but I have finally come up with a dragging sinker that incorporates all of the characteristics that I mentioned above. I will cover it in a later post and video.
The next objective after creating the sinkers I needed was to put them to use. That is what I have been doing the last three weeks. I have covered a variety of depths and structures in an effort to figure out for myself where this tactic is most effective. As you can see from the pics in this post, it has been going well. I have gotten some decent fish on most of my recent trips. I plan on spending much of my time on the water over the next few months dragging baits so that I can continue to improve with this technique. Be sure to follow my YouTube channel to see all the action from these trips.
