A tournament angler and I were fishing Niagara river on our boat last few days. Water was 55 degrees. It was a tough fishing day , most of our honey hole did not produce, In spite of tough day, he landed 6 bass 2-3lb range using 1/4 oz jig on 3 " tube, while I got skunk casting with heavy 1oz spoon and 1/2 oz jig on grubs or swim bait. My technique normally work on most occasion,...... but not that day.
He was bouncing the small tube close to the bottom, and was using light stiff rod, 1000 reel size reel, with 6lb flurocarbon line. I was using 10lb braided line, normal 7' bass rod, 2000size reel. I tried his technique as well , but could not feel lure action at the bottom, I was not sure if my grub were hitting the bottom or anywhere else, I tried to adapt the current flow of niagara river. He said it takes a lot of practice for finesse fishing on moving current, and when fish are not too active, the bass will stay close to the bottom at this time of the year, and refuse to come up the surface. He was making his lure bounce with slight twitch every so often. Bass were not too actively fighting he said, but they were all football size fat fish. There were million of 3" size minnows as well everywhere. Bass were well feed. We also saw a small 36" musky under our boat, it just stayed at the bottom.
Water was very clear with 8 ft visibility. Bright sunny day with no clouds or no wind. We were fishing under 12 feet of water. He said he normally would be fishing 25-35 feet deep at Erie with 1/2 oz jigheads, but Erie can be dangerous and windy at any give moment.
Tons of carp in a pod surfacing on 4 ft of water to our surprise, we cannot figure out what was the commotion all about, they do not spawn this time of the year, not sure if they were feeding on minnows either.
On another occasion, we saw another small musky feeding on surface minnows, and its fin were mostly visible above the water surface.
