I’ve seen guys quartering their casts upstream and working jigs/blades downstream, seen em pitch directly at the shoreline, and seen them cast quartering downstream. Is it based on what the fish want, water temps, current flow? All of the above, non of the above? Maybe i’m savvy enough to want to know why but not smart enough to piece it together.
My guess it all varies with condition, fish location or trying to get the bait to a certain location. First situation that comes to mind for me is getting jigs to the base of a wingdam and the small current break that can form in front of the base. I will cast a jig up river of the dam, hop it with the current to the base and sweep it through the front base of the dam for as long as I can.
Whatever it takes to keep it in the fish zone.
When you cast directly upstream, you loose a lot of control. To keep a blade from spinning or rolling, you need tension. In a general sense, if you cast directly up, you need to work it back much faster than the current speed. If you go to slow, you drag bottom and snag up a LOT more.
I prefer quartered. Down. I can work as fast or slow as i want, keping the blade positioned in the column as i want
Depends on conditions for me and the big factor is flow and current. If I have the boat right in the edge of a seam, I might drop straight down and let the current work for me. Lower current, I cast downstream and work the bait back. High flow I might cast upstream and work the bait back, through vertical, and then downstream.
The determine factor is what is going to keep the bait in the strike zone longest.
I agree with randy that working upstream to down poses some issues with snags and the bait rolling.
What is the strike zone on a river in spring?
What is the strike zone?
The area where fish are most likely to be and hit
Similar to trolling cranks, fish will at times show a preference to baits traveling upstream vs down. Quartering up/down sideways whatever puts the bait at different angles which gives the fish different presentations, with the same bait.
Upstream gets nasty snaggy, but can be effective.
Sometimes people cast all directions also just because there are possible fish in the whole area. I fish alot of non-wingdam river areas so the current seams and or Eddys that hold fish can be quite large and hold fish anywhere in em.
Strike zone is different depending upon locations….could be the base of the wing dam, edge of a break, edge of a current seam. When I’m fishing plastics or live bait and jigs I look for that area in a current seam where I can hold the bait just off the bottom to keep action in the jig. Not always vertical but sometimes it is.
Recent example on P4 was the edge over a deeper hole. Drop vertical and feel the jig work back in the current but then it would hold a few inches off the bottom with just enough current to get the tail to flutter. I assume that’s how the bait fish act because the walleye and sauger would just T-bone the plastics. Too much current or not enough and not a bite in that scenario.
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