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I hate to be the first to say it, but in WI I like to catch a nice blue gill/crappie/perch(or sucker in MN) and quick-strike rig it. It gets a lot of bites. Suspended 7-10 feet below the boat gets a lot of follows to bite. For a known fish on a specific spot, a controlled positioning to get the bait on the spot will prduce a lot of fish.
I know a lot of purists on here will cringe, but the question was how to catch them…..and the answer is bait.
Tim
I think this comes down to “choices”. I’ve been playing with this idea and so far, my results indicate that lazy follows only mean that the fish is close to being aggressive……… and will become so if offered the correct “choice”. Live presentations have long been offered as a “choice” to increase numbers of hook-ups and if not successful, no one would do it.
BUT……………
Have you ever seen a neutral fish swim away from a free, real meal? I have. Why would a big predator leave a free meal alone? I’m not sure but the word “chase” comes to mind. It still has to feel the desire to work for that meal…… so if it’s trying to conserve energy, for whatever reason, it’s not going to “work” very hard.
This makes me think of the plastic in the propwash kinda thing. Only MUCH slower.
Aggressive fish act in aggressive manners and this is most of the experiences being shared…… because of the hook-ups. But the lazy follower….. these are the stories of blood pumping disappointment. It’s also a topic of interest because we’re always talking about turning “neutral” fish into aggressive fish. I don’t think this ever REALLY happens. A neutral fish will follow you all day……… why? And if you find a way to make it strike, is it aggressively done or is it done in kind of a “ho-hum….. okay, I guess so” attitude? You may get a hookset, but not often a real good one and they regularly get away without getting their picture taken.
So…….. where am I going with all this?
Give it something that it can lazily take. If you can run 3 lines, you’ll find your followers using #1, leave a live meal on #2, and drag a plastic on #3. Last fall, #3 got hit by more “lazy follows” than #2 did. The only reason I can offer is the assumption of chase. They wanted something so easy, they could just take it. Treat it the same as a live rig…… let ’em run until the running stops, count to 5, and WHAM!!!
There was even a moment when simply setting a lure in the water, not moving at all, had a fish come up and check it out. I think I scared it off by being so close and visible……… but it was willing to take “something”, provided “something” presented itself.
Most successful predators in this world, take what can be taken easily, when possible. Because this doesn’t happen often, they get more aggressive and take more chances. Hunger drives them to do so.
This June 7, I’ll be putting some of this theory into the spring/early summer season to see if results differ. But last fall, live bait was “out chosen” 5:1.
That’s one of the main reasons I was hoping MN would go to two lines. When I go with the wife, her line is livebait in the rod holder and she catches more than I do 
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