Nick Rasnak was a very nice man who simply loved being out on the water. Catching fish was second to him, just being there seemed sufficient to satisfy his needs.
His nephew, Ed Harabin, fished with Nick quite often. Several of us travelled to somewhat distant lands to fish and in each venue, Nick was last to cast in and the least anxious to catch every fish that existed. Again, being there was the deal to him.
We fished together for weakfish in the Delaware Bay out of Fortescue and we also caught codfish out of Green Harbor, Ma., but more than anywhere else, Nick loved being out on Round Valley Reservoir and much of the time, it was with nephew Harabin.
Back in the early 90’s, Ed told me about an occurrence that took place at “The Valley” which caught my attention and of course, I listened, learned, and wrote about it. “It” was a system that Nick accidentally started that Ed copied and told me about and since then, I’ve caught literally hundreds, maybe even more like a thousand or two, fish using what became to be known as “The Uncle Nick Method”.
Ed, his friend Jim Sibilia, and Uncle Nick were in Ed’s boat and things were kind of slow. Nick put his line down to the bottom and put his rod down in the boat and, clearly by accident, left a little slack in the line instead of holding the sinker off of bottom so that the shiner (maybe herring, hey, it was a long time ago, right) would be kept in place, visible but controlled as we always used to do.
Ed and Jim fished as usual, but Nick caught a laker. And then he did the same thing, in his non-competitive way, dropped in and put the rod down, again, with slack. And again Nick got a laker.
After several fish, Jim and Ed decided it was time to try this seemingly foolish method and they too proceeded to catch some lakers on the slack line held at bottom.
Since learning about this, I find myself catching more lake trout at bottom via a double-anchored boat on a slack line, in a very specific way though. Here’s the deal:
Using the traditional ¾ ounce or whole ounce egg sinker, stop it above your main line with a medium sized barrel swivel and add 36-40 inches of line to the bottom of the swivel and then tie in your hook at the business end. The hook I have always preferred used to be called a “Sproat” model, made by Mustad and the model number was #3906. In fact, my guess is that by writing about the 3906 for doggone near twenty years I helped them sell hundreds of thousands of these hooks. But Mustad, for no logical reason, stopped making this hook so something similar is all you can get. They do make a 3906B, but that hook shank is too long. You can use the S80-3906 pictured below which seems like a good substitute.
Mustad sproat s80-3906
Put your large live shiner (or herring) on behind the dorsal fin and drop down to bottom in 80-100 feet of water. When you hit bottom, lift up several times to be sure that your sinker and baitfish were butted up against the swivel. More often then not, as the deal drops down, they get separated so this lifting will bring the slack out and this is really key to success.
Now that everything is as tight as you can get, open your drag, place your rod across the gunnels, and wait! Your live baitfish will be down there on its 36-40 inch leash and just as your puppy will do, the fish will swim away and get jerked back by the leash. At the worst, the bait will swim back and forth, up and down, on that tether and make any and all lakers in view step up and take notice.
At times, an even dumber sounding method will work, a variation on what Nick began. Use dead bait instead of live. Huh? Dumb sounding right? Well, not so much. I keep herring left over from prior trips in zip lock baggies. I use some for chum, cutting and dropping them over and this works great very often. But I make sure to hang onto any of the herring that float in my bucket after thawing out. Those herring, put on the hook, but stuck through an area below the lateral line, behind the solid waste dump site (friend Ron Bern stumbled onto this method, we call it “Ronnie-rigged”) and down she goes. The sinker sits on the bottom and the herring floats up on the 36-40 inch leader, bobbing up and down, looking all the world like an injured herring to all lakers in the neighborhood. Ron and I have caught more lakers with popped up herring than live ones while doing the “Uncle-Nick method of fishing.
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If you would like to read an entire book about “The Valley”, send $13.95 + 7% tax to Manny Luftglass, Box 556, Annandale, N. J. 08801 to get an autographed copy of “Gone Fishin’ in Round Valley Reservoir”. To see all of his books, go to www.gonefishinbooks.com.
and Bombers, metals like Phoebes, 
