Power-drifting with eels for Stripers

• Skip Stritzinger is skipper of the charter boat On Line in RI. He described power-drifting to Tom Meade in the Providence Journal.
• "What we do is stemming the wind. I turn stern to the wind and kick the boat in and out of gear so the lines are straight up and down, allowing the eels to swim down without any weight or terminal tackle. An eel will swim down 70 feet.
• "By eliminating wind from the equation, the eel is moving at exactly the same speed as the tide, which is the most natural presentation to the fish, and all it sees is five feet of fluorocarbon leader [which is virtually invisible.] All the fish really sees is an eel coming by in a very natural fashion as opposed to one that is attached to a bunch of terminal tackle and an 8-ounce sinker to keep it down."
• Stritzinger and Masso use only eels for power-drifting, but Stritzinger says that Bill Gavitt, another trophy-bass hunter, power-drifts chunks of menhaden "with just 2 ounces of lead. Obviously, you can't do it with no weight at all because you can't get a chunk to swim down the way an eel would."
• He always uses a fluorocarbon leader, and simply hooks the eel through the bottom of its mouth and up through its head. He says the method would also work with live shad or menhaden as bait.
• "There a lot of guys fishing for fluke, particularly the old sharpies, who fish a single jig and use the technique of stemming the wind. It's the same idea: you get the jig to move at the same speed as the current. Think about it: When a fluke is lying on the bottom, it's facing the current waiting for a baitfish to come along with the current so he can ambush it. If the wind is pushing your boat in the opposite direction of the tide, you're going to hit the fluke in the back before he even sees your bait."
• How do you know when the boat is moving at the same speed as the current? Watch your line, Stritzinger says. If it's vertical with the bait just over the bottom, you've probably got it right. Watch the GPS, and it will confirm whether you're drifting in the same direction as the current. [this article was edited]