# Drift Fishing?



## MZehring (Aug 20, 2007)

Hey Guys,
Can someone inform me as to how you drift the river for catfish? I have seen several posts indicating the technique of drift fishing for cats and it seems to be productive. How do you guys keep from being hung up on every cast/drift? 
We fish the Maysville, Ky area of the river and would like to try drifting.
Any help would be great.
Thanks Guys!


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## truck (Apr 12, 2004)

I copied this from fisdealer's post ---- Good start to September on the Ohio River ------In the most basic way you just drop your lines down to the bottom, reel them up a couple times to keep them from dragging the bottom, yet still fish close to the bottom, and then let the wind/current, or use your trolling motor to "drift" around. You are basicly fishing straight down so when a fish hits, you definitley know it. You cover a lot of water doing this.


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## fishdealer04 (Aug 27, 2006)

Pretty much you are trolling, but straight down below the boat. You are covering a lot of water, therefore finding more active fish. You will loose a lot of rigs, thats just how it works, but the fish we have been catching make it well worth it. You just really need to watch your rod tips and your depth finder and make adjustments to the depths and to what your rod tip is doing so you know if you need to crank them up more when you get shallower or if you need to let line out when you get deeper.


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## Doctor (Apr 5, 2004)

When you first start out it can be very aggravating, as it is not fun to get rods hung up, I'll use only 4 rods much easier for me to manage, and we have seen 4 rods down at one time, I have only been doing this method for 2 months, I forced myself to learn the technique and complained about it the whole time.

But now that I have learned it we are catching bigger and better fish than we have ever done over the years, I still enjoy anchoring down on fish, but over the last 2 months I have really enjoyed drifting on the Ohio, the other thing is you see a lot more water and structure drifting than you do anchoring so I have really been putting the GPS to use.

It takes patience and determination to learn it but when you do you are going to see a totally different way to fish the river, over the last 2 months Lynn and I have caught well over 750# of fish just drifting in tournaments and that is generally a 6 fish limit our average fish is close to 20# each................Doc


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## C J Hughes (Jan 24, 2006)

If you have one person in charge of depth reading and the other lowering or raising the lines , working together seems to make it easier . Must be catching on Drift fishing ,for the first time ever last weekend there were 3 boats drifting a part of the Ohio of which I have never seen a boat . 
Another neat way to drift fish is with big topper bobbers . It is unreal when a big blue hits them plus it gives you some time to react . I never anchor down unless the current is going to fast . Right now the river is in great shape for drift fishing .


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## MZehring (Aug 20, 2007)

Are you guys using Drift Socks to slow the drift? Otherwise how are you keeping your rigs under the boat and not back behind the boat?


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## BMagill (May 5, 2004)

For some real fun, use the same technique in a kayak, if you go on a weekday and can avoid boat traffic. So far my biggest cat yak drifting was about a 6 lb channel. You can feel the whole boat get rocked when they hit.


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## Doctor (Apr 5, 2004)

No drift socks just using 6-14oz. of weight to keep the lines straight down, I drift fast about 1 mph if the lines start leaning back I add more weight, also using Monster Rod holders double action rod holders these things are just plain awesome when a big Blue slams down the rod you don't have to struggle to get the rod out of the holder.................Doc


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