With Jacob Wheeler wining The bass master elite at Cherokee and I think the intire top 5, They all were tight lineing I hear walleye fisherman have been using this method for years, Was wondering If anyone  uses this method. I know its a cold water method .I have bought Berkley Gulp minnows, and even bought a do-it minnow mold to make different weight heads, The lakes I fish are your highland resivorie we don't have shad, but we have whiteperch witch the bass small mouths, largemouth feed on in cold water.Was wondering if anyone has any thoughts or tips they would like to share??

I've used it and still do, but we just call it dead-sticking. Put a bait with very little action near the bottom and leave it right in their faces. Sometimes it's about the only way to get bit. A Ned rig is a killer fished like that at times. 

From the videos I watched from the Eastern Tennessee guys, they refer to tight-lining when you use light line (4lb test) on clear lakes with a small jig head and a small (3 inch) minnow.  It is cast out and reeled in.   The method you mentioned, where they drop it straight down (video game fishing) and leave still is what they refer to as Damiki-ing.  

 

Whatever it's referred to, I heard that it works in a very small window of water temperatures when the bait fish and bass are relating to deeper water and are more stationary. 

I have a lot of success doing it with a  Red Eye Shad . Hop it until it is right below the boat , lift it and hold it still .

I have been doing this for years for trout and mainly spots in the winter. My step dad has been tying flies for about 55 years and makes me these little 4" shad looking flies with feathers and bucktail on 1/4oz heads. 

 

I tried it with a fluke last week and it worked, but I will stick with the fly. The action is so much more life like and it does the work on its own.

 

13 hours ago, Ersteman said:

From the videos I watched from the Eastern Tennessee guys, they refer to tight-lining when you use light line (4lb test) on clear lakes with a small jig head and a small (3 inch) minnow.  It is cast out and reeled in.   The method you mentioned, where they drop it straight down (video game fishing) and leave still is what they refer to as Damiki-ing.  

 

Whatever it's referred to, I heard that it works in a very small window of water temperatures when the bait fish and bass are relating to deeper water and are more stationary. 

 

I don't care what time of year it is or what predator species it is. If you mark a fish and drop an easy meal into its face you're going to have success. It won't work 100% of the time, but do you know of an easier scenario?

 

With 360 sonar this will become a crutch everywhere soon.

It really boils down to local semantics.

In our neck of the woods, to "deadstick" is to allow the bait lie motionless on the bottom.

On the other hand, "tight-lining" refers to a 'pendulum glide', something you might use

with a jig or Ned rig to transmit strikes. 'Tight-lining' is distinguished from a slack-line "freefall",

which you'd normally use with a stickworm like a Senko or Ace.

 

Roger

 

I use both tactics here in East Tennessee and I have more luck with tightlining (cast and pendulum) but a lot of folks catch a lot more and bigger fish than me without casting (damiki). I really just never mark any fish so I cast at the banks, but it works very well. Gulp minnow and 1/8 oz jig head is all you need, and I don't use 4 lb test. That's just asking for it with all the zebra mussels