Advanced Baiting

Advanced Baiting
I am not real sure what the means or how it pertains to the old man’s favorite fishing hole. But he always seems to know right where the fish are, bet it open water or ice fishing. It has taken me a long time to understand the concept of sewn on bait and if one really can get more Togue with them.
No matter where we go the old man likes to use natural pond or lake bait. So while the rest of us set tents, unpack rigging and put up rain fly’s, the old man sets out to get some live bait. For years I could never understand this idea. But finally when I was allowed to go set out the bait traps with him I got it. I was twenty one at the time, a long time to wait.
The old man had at least two or three live bait traps that he would set. The first was in close to shore, the second out in a channel and the third in deep water. Deep water could be fifty down at times. All traps would produce great bait, but he could never get the smelts.
The key was his bait food, a little cheese o’s, dog food, bread and the secret ingredient, hamburger. Sometimes he would roll everything together like a meat ball before putting in the trap and sinking it down, But never to the bottom. He used a gallon jug for a float and strong thin line to the trap. The line has a duck decoy weight on it; the trap was hooked by swivel about four feet up from the weight, so the tree was just off bottom. This helped his avoid crayfish and weeds.
When the time came to fish, he would head out the channel and make a pass on the shelf between shore and the first drop off; as usual he would hit a fish. Then he would angle to the deep water and bang another one would strike. This would happen time and time again.
I couldn’t take it much more; I needed to know how the hell he was finding these fish. Twenty one years it took, but here was the answer.
Bud, he said, there is no secret, expect for the bait traps. The bait traps lure the bait as the bait for them is slowly released. The bait fish go in the trap, the bait is now around the trap, as are bait fish. Hmmmmm, get it yet. The big fish want the little fish and bait used for the bait fish. The bait also attracts plankton, which attract more bait fish. Then the secret was out, in all these years you haven’t noticed that all my fish come when I pass the bait traps! No, because you put out so much line, eight colors or 60 yards of mono on the down rigger that the darn boat is nowhere near the trap when you get the strike, no one has put two and two together.