This is a great topic as I believe lead choice and drift speed are what seperate the great fisherman from the rest.

I am always playing around with lead and speed and how often my lead is touching bottom and also how it is touching bottom.

It would be great to develop a consitent pattern to how much lead one should fish and how fast and how often they should be bouncing bottom in a drift.

Over the past year, since converting to direct drive, I have started throwing farther upstream and feeding line into my drift. I do this so that I am not only on the bottom when my offering begins to swing but because since I have started fishing in this manner I have hit just as many, if not more, when my lead is within a few degrees (angle) of directly across from me. It also seems that how much lead you need to bounce bottom across from you can have no correlation to much lead you need to keep in contact with the bottom on the swing.

If I am fishing a section of water that I know has fish or is very very 'fishy', I will change lead constantly and change the speed of my drift and the angle of the cast so that I am presenting my offering at differnt speeds and differnt depths so I can try to figure out what the fish want.

[ 12-21-2001: Message edited by: RPetzold ]