03-29-2001, 03:45 PM
Here in Kansas the ice has just gone off the lakes in the last few weeks and the stripers are on the prowl. I can find lots of nice fish in deep water but can not make them bite! This is shallow feeding time for stripers and as a result the wader fishermen are catching the majority of the stripers that are being caught along with some nice walleye and whites. Since I don't wader fish as much as I used to one way I catch these shallow feeding stripers is free lining shad. Free lining simply means using a hook with no weight and casting your shad away from the boat then pulling him around the area you want to fish with your trolling motor. Sounds simple right? Well try doing it with 3 or 4 shad, shad being a school fish will eventually find each other and then you get the fun of untangling there mess! One thing I do is tie a balloon above the shad at the depth I think the fish are feeding, release the balloon and feed out line until it is behind my boat the distance I want. I will then do this with however many balloons I feel I can handle according to the conditions for the day. I leave my reels in free spool with the clicker on to let me know when the strike occurs, I quickly take the rod out of the holder, point the rod at the balloon, engage the reel, let the fish take out the slack and set the hook hard! When you have allot of line out you have to set the hook real hard to compensate for line stretch. Give it a try there are times when this is the only way to get'um to bite, Good Luck<br><br><br>