Many anglers like adding a little insurance in the form of live shrimp in their livewells when they push off from the dock. And there are times when having the real thing can turn the tide to your favor.
However, Claude Jolicoeur doesn’t see any reason to bring shrimp with him when he’s fishing Geoghegan Canal.
“We’ve mainly been throwing the Matrix Shad,” he told me, as he handed me one to thread onto my jighead. “You can bring shrimp with you, but I don’t even bother because I’ve never had the need to use them instead of this.”
In fact, Jolicoeur told me a story about a fellow he took fishing not too long ago.
“I had a guy buy 40 shrimp at the marina before we left one morning,” he recalled. “He came out here fishing with us, and I took home 35 shrimp and made a little fettuccini.”
As if on cue, a trout inhaled Jolicoeur’s Matrix Shad right to help him drive home his point.
After adding that fish to the livewell, Jolicoeur passed on a little information about how he fishes the Matrix Shad in Geoghegan Canal.
“After I make a cast, I actually let out 5 or 6 feet of line,” he said. “If you don’t let that line out while it’s dropping, it’s coming toward you.”
That might not sound like such a big deal, but Jolicoeur wants his Matrix Shad to hit bottom right on top of the ridge in the middle of Geoghegan Canal.
The pendulum effect caused from not stripping line as your bait falls means it’s going to hit bottom closer to your boat than right on top of the ridge.
“Then you’ll swear there isn’t a trout out here,” Jolicoeur laughed. “And if your bait starts getting chewed up, you’ll want to switch it because you want a good, fresh bait.
“Once it starts falling down on your hook, it looks a little funny and they just won’t hit it.”
Jolicoeur decided to give me a little demonstration about how to rig the Matrix Shad, and he seemed to be a stickler for having a straight bait.
“You want it as straight as can be, he said. “Any crookedness, you want it to come out in the middle — no bends — anything that makes it not look right. Trout are very finicky, and they will second guess.
“If it don’t look right they won’t hit it.”
