Fishing Forum

Hi Willard fishing folks who use mussel bait for wipers. I have questions please.

Observations: 1) people do better catching wipers with no weight on their line. 2) when after wipers they will catch some cats but way more wipers (I am always surprised they don't catch way more cats than wipers, even when trying for wipers).

Questions: If you want more wipers than cats, are you always catching the wipers in the upper water column as the mussel is slowly sinking and then starting over as soon as it hits the bottom, or are you just leaving it on the bottom and hoping for more wipers than cats? Or do you drift the mussel keeping it more away from the bottom? Thx.
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I generally catch more Wipers than Catfish on mussels but that is not always the case, particularly this past summer on a couple of occasions I caught more catfish than Wiper. I will put out my lines and reset them after 15 to 20 minutes if I do not get bit. The first Wipers usually take the longest to get with the action picking up the longer I stay in one location, if I reset 3 times without getting bit I will move. I think that the mussels are more attractive to both the Wiper and the Catfish on the fall, but both will also pick them up off the bottom. They bite differently as well, Wipers tend to strike very aggressively while a catfish bite tends to be more subtle, often times I will notice that my line has changed direction, but my rod tip never moved because a catfish has picked up my bait and swam towards me. I keep it real simple I find a bottom contour on my graph that I like, I set an anchor, put a mussel on my hook cast my lines out, put the rods in the holders and wait for the action to begin. I may reset more or less often depending on the wind or lack of wind, I prefer a light breeze which does two things it keeps the bugs down and the boat pointed in one direction. A lack of wind and the boat tends to swing back and fourth requiring more resets and too much wind leads to a belly in your line making detecting bites and setting hooks more difficult.
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