Hey everybody, hope the seasons going well for you all
This weekend I was out with a buddy on Schroon Lake in upstate New York. We managed to get 3 bites on our shiners, 2 of which were caught and released and 1 of which broke us off. All holes were drilled in 25-60 feet of water.
The curious part is that all 3 of our hits came on our dead stick rod that we were sitting around. We also happened to have 4 tip ups out that got absolutely no attention, which leads me to believe there was some factor that made the fish hit the dead stick over the tip ups.
The differences are as follows:
-The tips up had the shiners ~3 feet off the bottom (as everyone seems to recommend), 6 pound line, 2 split shot about 18 inches above the bait.
-The dead stick rod had the baits at a somewhat random depth, 4 pound line, no split shots, and the hole it was being fished in had the surrounding area shoveled off.
So we had a bunch of theories and I'm wondering if any of them are reasonable.
-Maybe the lakers liked to hit the split shot free lines because the shiner was swimming more freely?
-Maybe the fish were higher in the water column so being 3 feet off the bottom was too low?
-Maybe the shoveled off hole let a lot more light shine down on our bait which perhaps drew the fish in?
-(long shot) The 4 pound line was less detectable to the fish and thus didn't scare them away from biting?
Thanks for any help. I know it may have just been random, and I know fish preferences can vary drastically from day to day, but the mystery is killing me.
