Mooching?

[joejv4]

I'm wondering about mooching during the summer. For someone on a budget, without downriggers, who wants to get some salmon during the summer, it seems like mooching is the perfect tactic. After doing a little research on it, I found most of the info related to the Pacific Northwest, and not a lot of info on mooching in the Great Lakes. This got me to thinking (always a dangerous event), and now I have some questions...

Do any of you guys use mooching as a tactic?

If you do, any special tips/tricks to help a beginner be more successful (if I decide to try it)?

Where can you buy good quality herring for cut plug bait?

How ticked off would guys get if someone were to set up for mooching just outside or inside the "flotilla" of trollers?

[joejv4]

Anybody?

[W.W.IV.]

Joejv4,

I know there has been luck jigging Mooching in the lake. Fair Haven is a good place to try it,I used to fish out of the bay and early in the season on those fogged in days when most of the boats were fishing the shore line we would head out deep,200fow out to 500ft. Well there were days when in around 200fow we would mark balls of bait and fish all around them180fow to the bottom, there was no wind so the boat would stay on top of them. We started to set up rods to try jigging for them but out of the fog came the thump thump thump of the engines from a tug or an ore barge, it sounded close and we couldn't see so we got the hell out of there. But I saw that several times out and never tried for them. If you did try for later in the season I'd stay away from the crowd and find your own fish. It's not that crowded on the lake any more. Try live sawbellies you might get them at a bait shop on the finger lakes. Give it a try. Good luck.

[BAZOOKAJOE]

I read an article last summer about a guy catching kings on Lake Michigan jigging 1/2 oz jig-heads with big gulp minnows. This was after the lake flipped and the kings were stacked up in shallower water.