What's Wrong with Bobbers and PowerBait?

After my earlier post, somebody emailed and asked why PowerBait isn't normally used with bobbers. It's a good question and I thought I should post the answer for everybody.

But first, let me say that just because most people don't use PowerBait with bobbers, doesn't mean you can't. The most successful anglers are those willing to try something different when nothing else seems to work.

The purpose of a bobber is to keep your bait near the surface the water. If you place a bobber just above the swivel and put a nightcrawler (or some other bait) on your hook, your bait will dangle below the bobber the length of your leader. Most trout fishers use a 12 - 18 inch leader, so their bait would be in the first 12 -18 inches of water below the surface. This works great if trout are feeding near the surface of water.

PowerBait floats by design. The main idea behind PowerBait is to keep your bait off the bottom of the lake. This makes it more visible for trout swimming by. If you're using an 18 inch leader, then your bait would normally float 18 inches above the bottom of the lake (assuming your sinker was sitting on the bottom of the lake).

Since both bobbers and PowerBait float, adding a bobber above your bait means that both are floating on the surface of the water. Trout must be feeding on the surface to see and take your bait.

Fall and Spring are the best times of year to fish for trout because water temperatures are cooler and trout are actively feeding near the surface of the water. As mentioned in my earlier post, we were fishing in a shallow part of the lake and trout were jumping all around us grabbing food off the surface of the lake.

If you wanted to catch trout, you had to keep your bait on the surface of the lake. And since PowerBait was the preferred bait of the day, adding a bobber to your line added casting weight and helped keep the bait on the surface of the water.