An In-Depth Look... "The Art and Science of Jig Dragging"

	Jason Halfen In-DepthAngling.com Field Staff Lake Wissota Forum Moderator Graphics by Tom Donaldson In-Depthangling.com Pro Staff

During times of seasonally low flow on river systems, an often-overlooked technique for targeting both shallow water walleye and deeper water sauger is “dragging”, using light jigs and either live or artificial baits. In this article I will describe the ins-and-outs of jig dragging, a very flexible method that can be applied successfully to walleye and sauger fishing in both the winter and the summer. What is dragging? The answer to this question starts by describing what dragging is not. Dragging is not pulling a jig across the bottom, using the leadhead to cut a small channel in the sand. Dragging is also not incessant hopping, with the jig always traveling up and down within several feet of the bottom. Rather, dragging is a method in which a slowly moving bait is presented just above the bottom, moving upstream, downstream, or across the current. Dragging is a technique in which an angler can cover significant stretches of water in the search for active fish. Because of its relationship to other coverage techniques, like trolling cranks or pulling spinners, it may be useful for a beginning “dragger” to think about dragging as “jig trolling”. Some important differences between dragging and other techniques include presentation speed (dragging is generally slower) and proximity of the bait to the bottom (dragging generally focuses exclusively on the lowest part of the water column). Perhaps the closest relative to dragging is live bait rigging, which, like dragging, is a generally slow, bottom-oriented technique. One significant difference between these two techniques, however, is that dragging offers anglers precise information about the position of the bait relative to the bottom, while rigging only offers precise information about the relative positions of the bottom and the weight. In other words, when dragging jigs, I know exactly where my baits are relative to the bottom, whereas when livebait rigging, I can only know where the weight is relative to the bottom, with other factors (snell material and length, hook size, current, and nature of the bait) determining how high or low my bait might be riding. How to successfully drag a jig. Proper execution of the dragging technique requires the angler to consider a wide range of issues, including water depth, current speed, boat speed (influenced by both current and wind), jighead weight, live or artificial bait buoyancy, and finally, bait motion. I have successfully dragged jigs in water as shallow as 3 feet and as deep as 25 feet. The depth that I fish depends, in large part, on the species I’m targeting and environmental conditions. In general, however, I tend to think about dragging as a technique best applied to the relative shallows, say 15 feet or less, and often substantially less. Areas best suited for dragging will most often have a consistent or very gradually changing depth also have a gentle current moving across them. When I get started on a “dragging pass”, I will move upriver of the area I want to target, and point the bow of my boat downriver. Then, I will use my bow-mount trolling motor to start pulling myself downriver, at a speed greater than that of the current. During times of seasonally low flows, when current speeds are often 0.5 mph (GPS) or less, I will tend to start dragging at speeds between 0.6 and 0.8 mph, using my bow-mount to fine-tune my speed. Whether you fish out of the bow or the stern, you must be able to monitor your speed at all times, so constant visual access to your GPS-determined speed is an important component of dragging. I have combination sonar/GPS units mounted at both the bow and the console, and these enable me to monitor both the water depth and my GPS speed from any location in the boat. When I have my direction and speed set up, I’ll lob a medium-length cast behind the boat, and pay out line until I hit the bottom. Then, I’ll close the bail, and let the moving boat start to lift and move the bait. I point my rod tip down and slightly back towards the bait while dragging. What you should not feel while dragging is a constant thunk-thunk-thunk of the bait digging into the bottom. This feeling is caused by having too heavy of a jig for your bait. I use jig sizes ranging from 1/16 oz. up to, on occasion, ¼ oz., although that heavy jig size is normally reserved only for very deep water. For typical shallow water areas, I will start with 1/8 oz jigheads, and move up or down in weight in small 1/16 oz increments until I find the correct weight for the conditions. While you may not feel the dreaded thunk of the bottom at the outset of your dragging pass, it is equally important to occasionally drop your rod tip back towards the bait to ensure that your offering is not riding too high. When you drop your rod tip back, your line should go slack, meaning that your jig has found the bottom. If your line never goes slack, then you either have (a) too little line out, and you should pay out several rod-lengths of line to get the jig back towards the bottom, or (b) too light of a jig, and it’s time to increase your weight, even if only by an additional 1/16 of an oz. I cannot overemphasize that proper jighead weight is central to successful dragging. Changing current speed, boat speed, and depth will all influence the position of your bait relative to the bottom. It is absolutely critical to keep the bait within a few inches of the bottom, and as a result, I am constantly modifying my jighead weight as conditions change. A good timesaver is to have several rods rigged up with different jigheads, so that increasing or decreasing weight is as easy as reeling up and recasting with a different rod. The proper jighead weight is not only determined by current speed, boat speed, and water depth, but also by bait identity and buoyancy. In my experience, I often need slightly more jighead if I’m dragging a paddletail from B-Fish-N tackle rather than a ringworm during the cold water period. In the summertime, I need less jighead to drag a leech than a full-size crawler. Factor the size and buoyancy of your bait into your jighead selection. The most successful motion that you can impart to the bait while dragging is, quite often, no motion at all. Let the movement of the boat and the current give the bait a naturally drifting appearance. At times, however, imparting an additional subtle movement to the bait while dragging can be helpful. This subtle motion involves a gentle forward and upward sweep of the rod tip, followed by a slow return to the tip’s original position while retaining a semi-tight line back to the bait. Bites will often occur during the return phase of this motion, or at the completion of the motion when the straight-line dragging begins again. Dragging bites are quite often identified only by slight ticks rather than by crushing strikes. It is my impression that fish will hit the forward moving bait and keep traveling in the bait’s original direction. An important consideration, particularly while dragging during the warm-water months, is to give the fish just a bit of time before setting the hook. “Tail biters” will sometimes grab just the tail of the dragged plastic or the tip of a dragged crawler. If you experience a bunch of short strikes, compensate by dropping your rod tip back towards the fish after the initial tick, give a brief pause for the fish to work its way up to the hook, and then drive the hook home with a sweeping hookset. It is in detecting these light bites and executing proper hooksets that using a high-quality graphite rod becomes vital to the dragging presentation. Boat control, bait control, and dragging The easiest boat and bait control scenario that you will encounter while dragging is to drag in the same direction as the current, with the wind either directly at your back or in your face. Here, boat travel is generally unidirectional, and baits have the tendency to remain directly behind the boat. It is important, however, to be prepared for other situations that you will encounter while dragging through the seasons. Dragging into the current can be a very productive twist on the standard dragging presentation. Dragging into the current means that both your boat, and more importantly, your bait will be fighting increased water pressure relative to the forces they experience while dragging with the current. In general, dragging up current has the tendency to cause a bait to rise above the target depth. There are two ways to handle this situation: you can increase your jighead weight to pull the bait lower in the water column, or you can slow down. Most often, when dragging upstream, I slow my speed to a barely perceptible creep. This allows me to continue fishing the lightest jighead possible for the conditions. There are times that this slow “creep and hover” upstream drag can be highly effective, particularly when I have identified a small area that is holding good numbers of active fish. If I were to drag downstream through this area, I would likely still pick up fish, but moving more slowly through the same area by dragging upstream will put my baits in the fishy zone for longer periods of time, often resulting in more fish coming to the net. In my boat, dragging into the current seems to excel during low-light periods, while dragging with the current remains a dominant daytime presentation. Dragging “on the swing” is a very useful modification to the standard upstream or downstream dragging presentations. To drag on the swing, cast to the left or right of the boat, rather than directly behind it. The movement of the boat will swing the bait from its original position to a spot directly to stern, at which time you can continue to drag upstream or downstream, or reel up and recast to the left or right. Dragging on the swing is particularly appropriate for covering a drop-off, where the initial cast is to the flat on top of the drop, the swing/drag pulls the bait down the drop, and the final drag works the base of the drop off. This presentation will help you identify whether fish are hanging on top, along, or at the base of a drop-off. Dragging on the swing also presents a moving bait at a slower upstream/downstream pace than a standard drag would, as the moving boat must move the bait both laterally (i.e., from the side to behind the boat) as well as along the direction of boat travel. Sometimes these small changes (sideways motion of the bait or slower speed) can make a big difference, especially in cold water. Dragging across the current, or dealing with crosswinds or shifting winds leads to additional dragging complications. Chief among these is that the stern of the boat tends to not directly follow the bow downstream but rather drifts from side to side; as the stern drifts left and right, it has the tendency to snag lines and/or baits. This challenge can be addressed by changing the manner in which baits are presented out of the moving boat. Rather than forcing the bow of the boat downstream and trying to drag straight out the back of the boat under such conditions, I will often turn the boat perpendicular to the current, and have everyone in the boat, even if that is just me, drag out of the upcurrent side of the boat. This method presents baits across the same swath of water that a normal, down-current drag would, but in difficult wind or current conditions this perpendicular boat presentation is virtually snag and tangle free. This boat control method is also the method of choice for dragging across current. Under these conditions, use your bow-mount trolling motor to move the boat left and right while the current continues to carry your boat and your dragged offerings downriver. Dragging in cold and warm months Dragging soft plastic baits remains my method of choice for targeting walleye and sauger during the cold-water period. Dragging plastics is generally far more productive, in terms of number and average size of fish, than vertical jigging with the venerable jig and minnow combination. In fact, once the water temperatures dip to consistently below 40 oF, minnows don’t even find their way into my boat. While fishing during the daytime in the cold-water period, I often find myself dragging the mid-range depths of 14-18 feet, and will move shallower or deeper depending on environmental conditions. During low-light periods, I will invariably move shallower, dragging most often in less than 10 feet of water to pick off hungry walleye and sauger that move shallow to feed at dawn and dusk. While plastics reign in my boat during the late fall, winter, and early spring, the early fall and late spring weeks tend to be seasoned with a healthy dose of bucktail jigs and minnows. Dragging these “hair and meat” combinations will often produce significant catches of sauger and walleye when the plastic bite is just a bit off. Summer dragging tends to mean live bait in my boat. Nightcrawlers, leeches, and minnows all have their time and place while dragging between May and October. In general, I tend to drag minnows early and late in the warm water period, with crawlers and leeches finding favor once the water warms to near its peak summertime temperature. Summer dragging also tends to find me working shallower than I did during the winter. I have vivid memories of fishing with 3 guests this past summer, during a 95 degree, windless and cloudless day, and catching a beautiful string of 16-22” walleye by dragging crawlers and 1/16 oz jigs in less than 6 feet of water, during the absolute heat of the afternoon. Equipping yourself for successful jig dragging. Summer or winter, the central element in successful jig dragging is an assortment of high-quality leadhead jigs in a variety of different weights. The H2O precision jig from B-Fish-N tackle is my terminal tackle weapon of choice for a variety of reasons. First and foremost among these is that this jig is available in a full spectrum of weights, from 1/16 oz up to 3/8 oz, with the range of typical dragging weights (1/16 to 1/4 oz) covered in 1/16 oz increments. This allows me to tip-toe from a typical starting weight of 1/8 oz to lighter or heavier jigs in very small 1/16 oz steps. Other attractive features of the H2O precision jig include the proper hook gap for plastic baits and a unique “keeper” for plastics that keeps the bait on the hook, in the proper orientation, for many fish in a row. In fact, I will often catch 10 or more fish on a single plastic bait while rigging them on H2O precision heads, while a normal leadhead might only allow me to catch 2 or 3 fish before the plastic bait is pulled down the hook or the head of the bait becomes shredded by a bulky lead collar. B-Fish-N tackle is also in the final stages of developing a jig that is specifically designed for snag-free live bait dragging in shallow water during the warm water months. Look for this jighead to dramatically increase catch rates for summer dragging. B-Fish-N tackle also offers the plastics that dress my leadhead jigs during the cold-water period. I find ringworms and paddletails to be equally effective for dragging. If you’re a regular visitor to In-Depthangling.com, then it will be easy for you to keep up with the current hot colors and patterns on the Mississippi River, and to translate these productive patterns into dragging success on your favorite body of water. I tend to favor high-visibility monofilament lines for use in dragging. I like to be able to quickly look left and right to visually assess whether my jigs are drifting through “the zone”, rather than skipping across the bottom or flying high above it. The relative bulk monofilament compared to a superline also provides just enough lift to keep the bait off the bottom, and also affords me the opportunity to simply snap off a snagged bait, rather than having to drive back over, and potentially spook, the shallow active fish that I am targeting in order to retrieve a stuck jig. One factor that has dramatically increased the success of my jig dragging during the past two years has been the introduction of high-quality St. Croix graphite rods to my dragging arsenal. These rods offer the sensitivity to detect light wintertime bites, and also the backbone to muscle heavyweight walleye and sauger to the net from the shallows. I favor two St. Croix Avid spinning rods, the AS68MXF and AS76MLF, for dragging. In addition to their high sensitivity, the slightly longer lengths of these rods allow me to move lots of line during good sweeping hooksets. Stepping up to these rods from my “garden variety” walleye spinning rods has been the single most important factor in increasing my dragging catch rates. But don’t just take my word for it…experience for yourself the difference that a quality St. Croix rod can make in your dragging. Dean Marshall at Everts Resort, on Pool 4 of the Mississippi River, is a full-line St. Croix dealer who offers a unique on-the-water demo program. If you want to spend some time dragging with a St. Croix, ask Dean to lend you a demo rod. He’ll rig it up with your reel, and probably even hang a productive ringworm or paddletail on it and point you in the direction of the hottest dragging bite on Pool 4. Dean can order any of the current St. Croix rods for you, and also offers free drop shipping of your new St. Croix rod to your doorstep, just to make sure that your graphite gem doesn’t get broken during its trip home. Putting it all together Spend any time dragging, and you will quickly come to appreciate what I call the “sweet spot”…a combination of depth, boat speed, current speed, proper bait and jig weight that brings your presentation into the fishy zone just inches above the bottom, and keeps it there as you move across your target area. You’ll know that you have found the sweet spot when you feel that “tick” of a walleye or sauger inhaling your dragged offering. Set the hook hard and bring that baby to the net, there are more fish to be caught! Until next time, I’ll be out dragging, and I hope to see you out there too. To browse proven plastics and jigheads for dragging from B-Fish-N tackle, click here. To discuss St. Croix rods or current fishing conditions on Pool 4 of the Mississippi River with Dean Marshall of Everts Resort, click here. Jason Halfen In-DepthAngling.com Field Staff - Lake Wissota Forum Moderator jason.halfen@in-depthangling.com