Bottom bouncing may not be new, it may not be trendy, and it may not be “hot,” but it is effective, period. It’s also a fairly straightforward tactic and once mastered, can be applied to any drop-off, ledge, or channel edge holding stripers in the Chesapeake bay—or for that matter, up and down the coast.

Get Pumping

Bottom-bouncing is the only form of trolling that requires an angler to constantly work the rod, and it’s usually used to target specific fish in a very specific spot—on a small hump, wreck, or drop-off, for example. It requires some pretty stout gear, with conventional reels spooled up with monel line. (Steel and superbraid lines will both work, but not as effectively; monel cuts the water well and makes it easier to keep your line on bottom, it doesn’t rust, and it won’t cut into the spool if you hook bottom, as some superbraids will.) Rods should be 6’ to 6’6” and fiberglass—in other words, more or less unbreakable—in the 50-lb. class, with a slow-action tip. Unlike other forms of trolling you’ll need to feel the weight hitting bottom for the tactic to work, and slow-action rods make this easier by taking up some of the slack and helping you maintain tension on the rod when you’re dropping the lure back. Levelwind reels are your best bet and while Senators will work, it’s easier to get kinks and bends in the line if you don’t have the levelwind feature. Get a kink in monel and it’ll break off on the next strike, so this is an important feature.

Lures used for bottom-bouncing are very specific: bucktails in the three to six inch range, usually chartreuse, white, or yellow. That said, you should carry about 100 chartreuse bucktails, 10 whites, and five yellows—that’s how good chartreuse is. Also stow a few reds or purples onboard, for extremely low-light conditions, when dark patterns occasionally shine. They should have light heads, usually an ounce or a fraction of an ounce. And they get tipped with live bull minnow (the bigger the better,) twister tails, squid strips, or (for traditionalists) pork rinds.

Bottom bouncing rigs start off with a triple swivel tied to the end of the main line. One of the two remaining eyes of the swivel needs a three-foot dropper line, which should be of relatively light mono; 20 pound test works well. (If you use heavier line for the dropper and if the weight snags bottom, you’ll lose the entire rig. But the 20 pound test will break off before your main line does, saving your lures and swivels.) Tie a six to 10 ounce dipsy or bank sinker to the end of the dropper line, with the exact size depending on the depth you’re fishing. In 20’ to 25’ six ounces will usually do the trick; in 25’ to 30’ you’ll need to go to eight ounces, and deeper means even more lead is necessary. The third eye of the dropper is for your leader, which is commonly 40 or 50 pound test. In this case it should be a long one, no less than 15’. Many old-timers use 20’ or even 25’ leaders before tying on the bucktail.

Work Out
Anglers will have to hold and “work” the rods at all times. Rods left in holders will not catch half the fish of worked rods, literally. In order to properly work a rod the angler must pay constant attention to both his gear and the captain, and the captain must pay constant attention to the depth finder. This can not be stressed enough—bottom bouncing is not a lazy man’s way of fishing, and if you treat it as such, you simply won’t be successful. Working the rods properly is truly the key to catching fish with this tactic.

Start out with your boat over level ground, moving at three to five mph (slower is usually better) far enough from the bump you’re working to get all of your lines set near the bottom depth and ready to catch fish before you cross over it. At this point, the angler must drop the line back until he feels the weight bump bottom. Then he locks up the reel, and maintains tension so the rig is pulled back off the bottom by the forward motion of the boat for at least 10 seconds. Then he drop back line a second time, until it bounces bottom again. Finally, the process should be repeated a third time. Now the angler should hold his rod forward so the tip is pointed towards the bow of the boat. Then he quickly drops the tip back while maintaining minimum tension on the line. He should (must) feel the weight bump bottom as the rod tip nears the stern. If not, some additional line needs to be dropped out before trying again or he’s dropping back too quickly (net allowing the weight to hit bottom) or too slowly (not feeling it hit because of slack in the line). When the line’s set properly he should be able to sweep the rod tip forward, then drop it back and feel the weight contact with the bottom just as the rod is pointed aft, almost at the very end of the back-sweep. If the weight bumps when the rod is only half way aft, there’s too much line out or it’s being dropped back too quickly and needs to be adjusted accordingly.
Now it’s time for you, captain, to go to work. When the boat moves over the edge of a bump you should call it out to the anglers, and let them know exactly what kind of change is coming so they know whether to take up or let out line. An example: you’re approaching a bump with the lines set, then you see it starting to rise on the bottom. You’ll tell your anglers “The bottom’s coming up from 30’. Now it’s 25’. Now 22’.” And so on. This way the anglers will be prepared for the rises and drops. This is important, because as soon as the depth changes they will need to adjust that line to keep bouncing that weight along. Otherwise, they’ll either hook bottom (going up the bump) or lose contact with it (going down the bump). In fact, while crossing over the depth change, on each and every sweep of the rod tip the angler should be adjusting the amount of line out to keep the weight bouncing bottom properly, without dragging. If he does so, the stripers will smack that bucktail right when it reaches the edge of the bump.

Quite often, fish will strike the bucktail as you’re dropping the tip back. In this case the forward sweep of the rod becomes the de-facto hook-set. If you feel added resistance as you start the forward sweep you should increase the speed and strength of that sweep, to get a solid hook-set. At other times, you may feel a twang on the line during the back-sweep or at the very end of the forward sweep. In either of these cases get as much tension on the line as quickly as you can and get a bend in that rod, before the fish has a chance to shake the lure free.

When applied properly, bottom-bouncing is one of the most effective methods of taking stripers around structure, period. There are a couple other factors to bear in mind, however. First off, if the structure is abrupt and snaggy, such as a wreck, bottom-bouncing will be nearly impossible because you’ll snag it on nearly every pass. In this case, however, you’ll still catch the fish if you mark the spot and troll right next to it. Secondly, give this method extra consideration when you’re fishing in an area with multiple humps and bumps, but the fish have been on the move. While other forms of fishing might force you to try spot after spot until you finally find the one the fish are at, by bottom-bouncing you can troll from hump to hump and cover a lot of them in a short period of time. Then, when you find one hump or shoal that’s productive you can stick to it. Belvedere Shoals, just north of the Magothy River in the upper Chesapeake, is a perfect example of such an area. With dozens of humps and bumps that range from 12’ to 22’ in depth, you can troll back and forth across the changes until you figure out where those fish are feeding at. And when fish are around these bumps and humps, there’s absolutely no more effective way to catch them than bottom-bouncing.

It may be more work than other forms of trolling, but some anglers would also say it’s more fun since you get to play a role in attracting and hooking the fish, beyond simply setting some lines out and driving around. And when you get down to brass tacks there’s no argument: bottom bouncing is one of the most effective ways ever invented to fill the fishbox during the fall.

You can learn more about this technique and others in the Lenny Rudow’s book, Rudow’s Guide to Rockfish, $19.95, available at www.getgup.com, which details many specific tactics that are effective on stripers.

You can find the author’s (Lenny Rudow) how-to fishing books, including Rudow’s Guide to Fishing the Mid Atlantic, Rudow’s Guide to Fishing the Chesapeake, and Rudow’s Guide to Rockfish by clicking on www.getgup.com and visiting the Geared Up web site.