Drift fishing

651 Views 5 Replies 5 Participants Last post by Keith White, Dec 23, 2009

Keith White

Discussion Starter · Dec 22, 2009

Look, I don't own a boat but..

Lets get some techniques in here cause skishing is very crossover.
Choosing drift lines is just one skill in open water I'm starting to learn.

How do you guys set up a drift ?
And, when you've drifted it, how far away from your drift line do power back up it ?

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Alex Jordan

· #2 · Dec 22, 2009

Can't comment on how the Jersey boat mafia do it but over here boat / kayak wise in Chi Harbour we use a drogue ... find the features you want to go over and adjust according to tide and wind for initial positioning - fortunately the tide hits a max of around 4 - 5 knots on flood so you go at a fair pace with the drogue counter acting the wind (Chi is a big open expanse of water so wind can be fairly influential)

Need to setup an anchor trolly (pully system) on my kayak over the winter so its easier to deploy an anchor or drogue without having to paddle backwards and reach around ...

Most of my drifting is kayak based so I tend to longer drifts before paddling back upstream - we have a few areas where you get tide lines of differing speeds - I tend to stay in the slow lane (saves my arms!) - we get a fair amount of varied terrain, sand bars, rippled gulleys (not quite as deep as the ones we did at the waterfall ) broken ground and jap weed beds (just offshore in the mouth of the estuary we have some wicked sand bars with around 12ft differential!). Shame most of this is boat or kayak only - very hard to hit the features without a floaty device ... considered the wetsuit / skish approach but it can tend to be a busy shipping channel too :/

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Dicky Smith

· #3 · Dec 22, 2009

The plotter helps a great deal in setting up the drift. Either because the trails are still there from the previous visit, or your first drift is your reference point.
Not a lot of use to you though Keith when skishing!

I start the drift well uptide and taking into account the features I want to pass over, or more importantly to miss any dangerous limpets that I may drift onto :muttley:

I always drift well beyond the strike zone and motor back a good 300 yards away if possible.

This is in the boat, not the yak though.

I tend to paddle back a bit closer to the drift line because the yak is more stealthy, plus I'm a bit lazy!

I don't think bass are scared unduly by the yak. The amount of bass I've caught trolling back up drift makes me think they may even be attracted to the disturbance similar to marlin etc being attracted to the noise and wake of a big game boat.

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Retired

· #4 · Dec 22, 2009

alderneybassman said:
The plotter helps a great deal in setting up the drift. Either because the trails are still there from the previous visit, or your first drift is your reference point.
Not a lot of use to you though Keith when skishing!

Alderneybassman is spot on. I use my plotter all of the time to plot drifts. Basically if current direction is constant (which it rarely is),you can gauge your drift based on the first attempt and adjust your start point for subsequent drifts. As tide increases or decreased the effect of wind changes and vice versa.

"Simples" in theory but like a lot of fishing, I'm still learning and will be until the day I stop fishing.

I tend to do drifts targetted at features in deeper water, not the longer bumbling in shallow water type drifts. The distance drifted past a mark depends on how "tight" I think the fish are to a mark. Sometimes its the space of a small car behind an exposed head and I know they will stay there with boat traffic in the area, so I don't wait as long before I motor back up tide.

As for skishing, how long before Chris builds an SBS style chest mounted GPS with head up display Keith?? :lol: I shouldn't laught because he probably will do it one day.

Good thread.

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Chris Guest

· #5 · Dec 23, 2009

Most of my fishing is drifting 50/100mts from and along the face of Cliffs, Coves and Headlands so for me tide (flood or ebb) are important as is wind (strength and direction)
so in order...
I approach my chosen mark motoring in on tick over taking note of tide and wind, look for "pot" boys and how they are acting in the current these are a great help and very often the only reference point in the sea you will get.
Set my drift using the "mark" on my chart plotter and or land reference points, let the boat settle and get my buddy fishing, I very often don’t fish on the first drift rather take my time "setting" the outboard to help "steer" the boat across/with the current. My eyes are constantly on the plotter looking for features away from the boat, the guys I fish with take it in turns with me keeping a watch for submerged rocks e.t.c interestingly if we have to get in really close I keep the (large) outboard in neutral and ticking over ready for a quick getaway and it doesn’t seem to effect the fishing one bit in fact I've regularly had Bass/Pollack take from under the boat.

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Keith White

Discussion Starter · #6 · Dec 23, 2009

As for skishing, how long before Chris builds an SBS style chest mounted GPS with head up display Keith?

No, you shouldn't laugh.

He's been working on it a while m8.

I think he is trying to get some display internal to the mask when we are freediving too.

It WILL happen. If you guys (not Paul) saw how innovative this bloke is, you'd be blown away.

This is how our skishing has gone from it's humble beginning's to the technically advanced sport we have now
and there is NO sign of these advances slowing down.

btw, the tech isn't all high, some of it is surprisingly low tech. So low tech it just has to be high tech so you
can explain how you never thought of it before LOL

That's how I like to explain it anyway.

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