“The most valuable person when fishing the kitchen sink rig, or really any spider rig, is the navigator,” Jay Stone said. “The navigator has to pay attention to where the boat is at all times.”
In layman’s terms, that’s the person controlling the trolling motor.
“You have to stay in the channel and know where the hang-ups are,” Stone said. “If you let the boat get in the wrong area, it’s going to be a mess. I have been in a situation where we got every pole hung up, and the best thing to do there is just break them off and start over.
“That’s no fun.”
Navigating isn’t the right job for someone who is the least-bit ADD.
“I can’t stress that enough: You have to pay attention,” Stone said. “You can’t do like old Godwin and be playing with your iPhone or chatting with the other fishermen. You either pay attention or you pay the price of re-rigging these things.
“And it takes about 10 to 15 minutes to rig up one Kitchen sink rig.”
You also have to keep an eye on the depth finder to make sure you are staying on the fish because — even though some fish are moving shallow this time of year — there are still big schools of baitfish and big schools of crappie in deeper water.
There are almost always suspended fish, and sometimes the best time to catch them is when everybody else has already gone shallow and you have them to yourself.
Those are the fish Stone targets. And the kitchen sink rig will also work in lakes where there is mostly open water and fish stay suspended for a good part of the year.
“Those are the ones I go after, mostly,” Stone said. “Suspended fish are going to bite either because they are hungry or because it’s a reaction bite.
“You’ve just got to put the bait in front of them.”
