Whenever I'm fishing a Senko around shallow water cover, what I like to look for is a
few different things. Obviously any type of cover, whether it be wood or grass sticking
out of water are going to be your targets to hit. Also, if the sun gets up as well you
want to key in on the shade areas. Whether it be a dock pylon, or a lay down coming in
the water. My first cast is always going to be to the shady side of that piece of cover
because a lot of times that's where I get bit. So I'll key in on those areas but I won't
neglect the rest of the cover just because it's not necessarily in the shade. If you
have a lay down coming into the water you'll want to hit both the deep end, middle part,
and the shallow end of it. I'll tend to hit them in that order for the simple fact that
I don't want to cast up shallow into the skinniest part of the cover and if I catch a fish not
only are my chances of landing it going to be more difficult than if I were to get bit
on the outside of the piece of cover. But if there's any other fish holding around it's
going to disrupt fish that our maybe hanging on the deeper side of it. For that reason
I like to hit deeper first, then make my way shallower. For tackle, if I'm fishing in heavier
cover I want to use stout tackle. I'll use a iRod Air 703 or 704 medium heavy or heavy
action rod and generally 17-20 pound Seaguar InvizX. I like to use a straight shank Owner
Triple X 4/0 hook for my Senko fishing. I feel like I Loose less fish on it than an
offset brand or a EWG style personally. "You're fishing an EWG one time and you have two fish
jump off which might be a freak thing and your like wanna know what, I'm going to a
straight shank and it doesn't happen forever and your like oh the straight shank is better."
Like you said you have more confidence in it. What's good about fishing a Senko around
shallow cover is that you can definitely hit a lot of areas, and hit a lot of different
pieces of cover in a short amount of time. It doesn't take you long to fish. This is
primarily a drop bait so right here we're fishing in about 2-3 feet of water. So you're
just going to pitch it out there, let it sink for a few seconds, let it do its thing, and
you're watching your line the whole time. Because a lot of times you won't feel the
bite cause there will be a little bit of slack in your line but you will see your line jump
or just tick and a lot of times that's when you get bit. So it's important to be
a line watcher in this situation.
Another thing you want to do with your presentation is when you pitch or cast your Senko in and
around the cover, you want to make as little of splash possible. It's fairly easy to make
a clean presentation because the Senko doesn't weight a whole lot. So when it hits the water
as long as you feather your spool a little bit you can make it land with a big splash.
Another important thing with a Senko is make sure after you make your pitch or your cast,
you want to pull just a little bit of line off of your spool. That way you can ensure
the Senko is falling on a complete slack line so it doesn't affect the action at all.