Bumping for Catfish ...How do you do it ?

[mtracy2u]

Has anybody used this technique on the James ? It seems it is quite popular and works well in some areas. Several out of towners were talking about Bumping at the Weigh in on saturday .

[Gottheblues]

yes, it is very big west of Va. it is a drifting technique where you use a trolling motor or regular motor to position your self better or possibly hold in one area for a short time instead of just letting the current or wind take your boat in a certain direction. ie, you can drift down a channel edge by using your trolling motor to keep you in position.

[Hawkeye]

You can sometimes use the tide against the wind to get a decent slow drift or start a drift around slack tide with no motor help. Its pretty much a good way of fishing a flat where you are trying to cover ground or at tide changes when you are waiting for the flow. Use this a lot in the bay bottom fishing for croaker, trout and flounder. But less head achs in the bay with a pretty clean bottom compaired to our rivers. You can take this to another level with rope/wire lead or "slinkies"?, egg sinkers in hollow shoestrings. This allows you to drift a fairly snag proff skinker with the bait off the bottom a foot or more to lessen the chance of snags.

[mini moe]

Some people around here use drift socks, an underwater parachute like device to slow the boat in strong wind, would probably not work in current, don't know. It works well in lakes or still water with wind blowing. By the way..... while I'm here on board....I asked on another post how the weather was for the cat quest tourny and didn't get a reply. You guys hurt my feelings.
[grin]

moe

[Gottheblues]

drifters use drift socks and other things to slow them down but "bumpers" us some type of motor to hold them over structure, ledges and such.

mini, the weather wasn't that great...that's why the numbers of big fish were small. a couple of fronts came through during the day and the wind kicked up a bit during times.