Draggin Bait

[gottog]

Oviously even a bare hook has some weight to it. Add some bait and it gets "heavier" no?
With no drift, the bait isn't really going to "float" unless you place something bouyant on it.

So you're out drifting and have 8ozs on and drift picks up. Now the 8oz is not holding and as you drift along it raises up..."can't hold bottom" is a cry you hear alot of times.

So how is the baited hook going to "sink" if an 8oz sinker won't hold? 
The longer the leader, the higher it'll raise is what I've seen/experienced.

Just look at trolling, sometimes you need downriggers to get it down as moving through the water quickly, the baits will tend to rise no?

[Luna Sea 5]

I was always told that for a fast drift you have to shorten your length of leader. If the sinker, while dragging it ona drift, is lifting up from the bottom due to a fast drift, your trailing bait is just going to lift even higher.

Gotta remember that the bait if after the weight.  With a very slow drift, a longer leader gives you more movement in the bait while bouncing the sinker.

With a teaser over a bucktail, how does it come after the jig?   On a drift the bucktail will be at the bottom with whatever hung above it slightly in front of the jig and of course above it.

Maybe with a 3way setup then teaser would be after the bucktail but then it's just like a bait rig as described first.

this is correct when bucktailing, but the original post was for a standard fluke rig, where the weight it above the leader if the fishing pole is upright.

[rossg]

I also dragged bait for years. The longer the length the more movement off the bottom you will have in a quick drift

May i suggest that you start jigging with a bucktail 4-6 ounces on the bottom and half an ounce jig one foot up(the teaser)
In two days we had 25 keepers on this rig Most on the teaser

Ross
The Lady J
Belmar NJ

[Luna Sea 5]

The longer the length the more movement off the bottom you will have in a quick drift

pretty much what I said..

[gottog]

With a bait rig, the sinker is before the trailing hook/bait. Whether you use a 3way, fishfinder slide, etc the sinker will be dragging and the offering following.  Once the sinker starts raising off the bottom due to too fast of a drift, the trailing hook/bait behind it will raise even higher since it's lighter.
Of course you could switch the sinker for a fluke mine/chrome ball jig or bucktail, but same priciples will arise. 

If you know making the leader longer causes the bait/hook to rise higher, why would one do it when drift picks up as it'll just make it go even higher and out of the strike zone?

[Luna Sea 5]

trial and error.  your pictures is accurate, but adding length to that leader will lift it higher in the water colum.  The reason why most people don't change the length of the leader is... where your basic 2' - 3' average comes from... who wants to keep changing the leader length...  But the fact still is the same.. looking at your diagram.. if you add length to the leader, you will add hight off the bottom..

There were times me and a friend years ago used  the same rig and same bait, but one of us as a 1' leader and the other had a 3' leader.. one way was catching everything and the other wasn't.. as soon as the one switched over to the one that was working.. both of us were catching equally..