When the big river rises this spring, dragging across a good, submerged sandbar could land you some trophy cats.
Rusty Jackson of Olive Branch has a difficult time concentrating when he’s navigating the Mississippi River during times of low water. It’s not that Jackson, owner of BigRiverCatfishing.com, is afraid of the hazards of low water, it’s that he’s afraid he might miss something on one of the numerous sandbars that line the river. He is busy making mental notes so that when the water rises in the spring, he’ll know where to drag for catfish.
“Some people might call this style of catfishing trolling, but it’s much more intense than that,” said Jackson, a B’n’M pro staffer. “Those bars have all kinds of small timber that grow up when the river is down, and that timber collects a lot of floating debris when the water rises. It’s perfect catfish habitat, but to fish it, you have to drag baits through it rather than troll it.”
Another benefit of dragging baits across the tops of structure-studded, submerged sandbars is that the relatively shallow water provides a current break. The speed of the water is not fast enough to bump for catfish, but the swirling currents typical of a good submerged sandbar also make it difficult to anchor in.
“I always go with the current,” Jackson said. “I usually run 4 rods: two on each corner of the stern, pointing back, and two on each gunwale at a 45-degree angle.”
Jackson’s dragging speed is just fast enough to go with the flow, somewhere between .3 and .5 mph as measured on his electronics He said the average current speed on a good sandbar is about .5 mph.
Dragging heavy tackle through submerged trees, rocks and debris piles is not for the faint of heart. Jackson uses specialized tackle, at the heart of which is a specially designed trolling weight he manufactures called a Structure Snake.
Jackson named the weight because of the flexible way it bends and crawls around heavy cover. The Structure Snake is a long slinky weight, coated in high-density polypropylene thermal plastic that allows it to drag across and through obstacles without hanging up.
He drags the weight on 80-pound braid attached to a Hawaiian swivel that slips to another 3-way swivel. The Structure Snake is attached to one end of the 3-way, while a 36-inch leader is attached to the other. The leader, which terminates in an 8/0 Daiichi hook, is comprised of two lengths connected by a 40-pound barrel swivel. The first 4 inches is a break link of 40-pound mono; in case the hook becomes wedged, the break link protects against loss of the entire rig. The remaining leader is 100-pound mono that is crimped to the swivel and snelled to the hook. About midway down the leader is an oval float that allows the baited hook to ride just above the structure to prevent snagging.
“It might sound complicated, but it’s a good system, and it absolutely allows you to fish in places others won’t go,” Jackson said.
Jackson’s rod choice is an 8-foot B’n’M Silver Cat Magnum paired with a heavy duty line-counter baitcasting reel. The line counter allows Jackson to space the baits closer on the stern and further on the gunwales so that they lines don’t cross and tangle if he makes a tight turn.
“I usually start out with the inside lines out to 150 feet and the outside lines at 200 feet,” he said. The water depth on a good sandbar is 12 to 20 feet deep, so that allows for a pretty flat line to slide over.”
Jackson likes skipjack herring for bait. Skipjack may or may not be readily available in the spring, which is why he buys fresh-frozen herring by the freezer-full during the fall runs. but skipjack isn’t the only choice, he said.
“These fish on the sandbars are up and cruising, actively looking for food,” he said. “One of my favorite baits is fresh-cut Asian carp or buffalo; any of those can be caught right off the end of a concrete boat ramp with a cast net.”
Jackson’s rig may vary, depending on the size and section of bait he’s using. A big head section will require a two-hook rig, with one hook through the jaw and another — run off the snell of the other one — hooked through the skin on the back.
Jackson mostly fishes the section of the Mississippi near his home, from around Memphis, Tenn., downstream to about Greenville. He said finding a good sandbar isn’t difficult if you’ve done your homework during low-water periods to make notes of what’s available.
“I’ll place waypoints on my chart alongside a sandbar that’s out of the water, and I might make one- or two-word notes about what’s adjacent to that mark, like ‘rock pile’ or ‘tall trees’ — just something to jog my memory,” he said.
Most of the better sandbars will be on the inside of a bend in the river. The current will be much stronger on the outside, creating softer or even reverse currents on the inside bend. Jackson prefers bars adjacent to deeper water; a bonus would be a deep scour hole on the downstream end of the bar. To the fish, it’s like a steep cliff dropping off into a deep hole. He may work several bars in a day, or maybe just one, as some sandbars can be more than a mile long.
“With technology, you can chart a path and hit your marks and just go,” Jackson said. “It’s really fun fishing. The boat is easing along, and your baits are dragging through good structure, which usually hold hungry fish. About the time you get settled in, one of the rods bends over with a big catfish.”
Phillip Gentry of Simpsonville, S.C., is host of “Upstate Outdoors,” a weekly radio show that can be heard on Saturdays at noon on WORD 106.3 FM.
Knot alternatives
Working with heavy fishing line often means figuring out alternative ways to attach one piece of a rig to another without tying knots to every piece. Monofilament and lightweight braided lines may be much simpler to tie into a variety of useful fishing knots, but when using 80- to 100-pound test line, getting a good knot that will tie in a short space of line and hold up to the power it’s rated for is a chore.
Accordingly, many anglers who use heavy tackle opt for alternatives to tying knots in their line.
- Crimping. Most anglers think crimping, with the use of single or double metal sleeves, is only used for wire. Not true. In fact, crimping may be one of the best ways to secure thick monofilament, as the crimp grips the mono without causing damage to the line.
- Swivels. Swivels may be used as a tie point between lines of different sizes or compositions where the two are not compatible due to differences in line size or material. Snaps or snap swivels provide a tie point for one line that attaches to a loop, eyelet or other connection.
- Snelling. Most commonly used to attach large-diameter line to heavy gauge hooks, snelling is similar to tying a knot except that the line wraps around itself and secures the tag end to the shank of the hook rather than just the eye.
- Looping. Even heavy lines are simpler to tie when using a loop knot with a large opening. Loops are most commonly tied using Figure 8 knots. They can also be intertwined, bringing the leader through the loop to make a strong connection.
- Braid knots. Opinions vary, but one of the most-popular, and highest strength-rated knots used for tying heavy braid to other tackle such as hooks swivels or other eyelets is the Palomar knot. It is tied by looping the line, inserting the loop through the eyelet, then bringing the hook or swivel back through the loop and tightening the knot down.
The power to pull
While Kent Driscoll of Franklin, Tenn., doesn’t do a lot of trolling for catfish, as a tournament crappie pro, he does know a thing or two about spending a day on the water trolling. He said finding a power source to supply electricity to his Minn Kota Ultrex trolling motor for a full day of fishing was a big challenge.
Having worked through several popular brands of marine batteries, Driscoll looked into a heavier-duty, deep-cycle battery and found what he was looking for in a US Battery 12-V golf cart battery package. U.S. Battery’s flooded lead acid batteries are engineered and proven to provide the fastest cycle-up to full-rated capacity and have the highest total energy delivered over the life of the battery.
“I can get a full day of trolling at 1.5 to 2.5 mph from my 21-foot aluminum (boat); I’m talking 8 hours of solid fishing,” he said. “If I’m moving slower, I can get 8 to 12 hours pulling at speeds of .7 to 1.2 mph.”
Driscoll said several other factors help him get the most out of his batteries. Always trolling with the wind, good battery and terminal maintenance and keeping the batteries fully charged all help.
“Trolling into the wind will kill your batteries; I don’t care how good they are,” said Driscoll, who advocates regular checking of the battery terminals, wiring and water levels in his trolling motor batteries.
“I keep all of my batteries connected and plugged in to a Minn Kota 4-bank charger when I’m not on the water fishing,” he said. “This maintains the charge, and by keeping the terminals clean and the connections tight, it prevents you from losing power on the water.”
