Haris122

Ive been to Simpson several times now, and only recently have I had any "consistent" luck. Which constitutes catching 2 pairs of White Crappie on two kayak fishing trips. 3rd kayak trip I once again got skunked. Before that I had caught 1 tiny Crappie, and 1 decent Channel Catfish there in numerous trips fishing from shore or dock. The MDC webpage for Simpson mentions the Bass and Crappie population to be good, but to date I have never caught a Bass of any sort there, and up until recently had only seen one Crappie from it. I wish it fished better, cause it's one of the few "calm water" spots around St. Louis where you can go fishing out of a kayak, regardless of how fast and high the rivers are (I'll just conveniently forget about the Meramec connecting to it in high water events). As far as I can think of, Simpson Park, Unger Park Lake, and Creve Coeur Lake (George Winter being a little more at the mercy of river conditions) are the only such places immediately around here. Creve Coeur I haven't given a shot from the kayak yet, but Simpson and Unger have been pretty fruitless for me.

Anyone have any luck lately at Simpson, Unger, Creve Coeur or such, regardless of species? And if so what? I've been to both Simpson, and Creve Coeur recently. Didn't have any luck at Simpson the last time, and caught a small bass (with a bad eye), and a small Channel Cat at Creve Coeur but that's been it.

Al, is there a direct link to this study. Been wanting to read a little bit on this type (and other types) of research they do, but I'm not finding it on the MDC website.

Looks like a White Crappie to me.

Thanks for the advice guys.I intend to put it to use soon

I went on the Meramec near Kirkwood 2 weeks or so ago with my kayak, and couldn't catch anything. It got me wondering how do you fish stretches of river with a kayak. I was mainly targeting slower spots close to shore with brush or rock piles, and anchoring there to actually have some time to cast or jig. The few times I tried any faster water the anchor wouldn't really stick and I just kind of floated on down the river with anchor in tow on the bottom. I guess my question is, is there any way to effectively fish it without just restricting yourself to slow water and constant anchoring.

I went with some friends last fall and most of them did all right. Not a whole lot of Crappie or huge sizes, but they were biting near brush. I finally started catching something towards the last few hours there, but it wasn't much. For us it was pretty much just Crappie, mid to small ones, and nothing else. We even set trot lines and such in hopes of a huge catfish but nothing hit. They had actually gone that spring and didn't catch much until the very last day themselves, but once they did it was big Crappie one cast after the other. It is a pretty lake though, and I'm hoping to go back again sometime this year. I have read that this year the sizes of Crappie are not as good as years past.

I personally only caught a few very small ones. But I've seen people catch bigger ones, and that dude with the picture caught a huge one out of there. It never struck me as a place where a fish like that could live long, cause the algae really builds up heavily at that small place in the summer and most of the lake then seems to get really stale. Hell I'm sometimes surprised any fish can survive there during the summer. If that aeration boil were to break down, I bet things would turn out real bad for the fish there in summer.

Have you tried the county/city park lakes where they supposedly stock them intensively? I do decent at Suson, Wilmore, or the Bush conservation area lakes that they heavily stock eating sized channel cats in, though they almost always bite a lot more than I actually manage to catch.

With the public park ponds a lot of it seems to be timing. I saw a friend of mine catch 2 nice bass this spring when it got warm enough to start stocking fish besides trout, from one of the Suson park "lakes". Also was shown a picture of a huge one while at Tilles park a year or two ago from some guy that had caught it there. Neither of those spots I would've suspected would have any good sized bass. If you hit it at the right time, after a recent stocking or such you might get a pretty good one. My lone decent one from nearby public ponds was at the smaller Fabick lake last year. How long they remain in there with everyone else fishing, that's probably the bigger question.

I still have mine technically in the hull. But what I don't plan on doing anymore is securing it to any one spot in there, so I can't easily move it. But I do imagine it be a safer bet just to have it in the water. Especially if you can read water temperature with it too.

I had similar problems with my humminbird piranhamax 143, so I'm not sure your problem is company specifc. I installed the transducer with marine goop inside the hull of the kayak, and it worked fine for the first 4-5 trips. Next trip it started off reading fine, and then a minute into it, it just stopped reading, as if it was in less than 3 feet of water the entire time (this unit isn't capable of reading reliably in less than 3 feet). At first I thought it just may be in shallow water, but pretty soon I grew suspicious that anywhere I went it was supposedly that shallow, so I checked with my paddle and found the water to be easily deep enough that the unit should read it fine. I thought at first maybe the battery was drained, and there wasn't enough juice for it to function properly, so I charged it up. Didn't make a difference. Then I went to a different lake where I knew it worked before, just to check that there wasn't some weird "Predator" effect from the bottom mud/composition at that specific lake. I didn't think it would be, since it read fine that first minute there before, but I checked regardless. As expected that wasn't it, as it didn't read at the lake it previously had, either. So I scraped the marine goop out of the hull, and cut out the transducer from it, and thought of testing it by dunking it in water, as I figured by now, it had gone bad. Before I even got to do that, the transducer started reading again, through the hull, just as it was, resting inside the hull. I took it to the same place I initially had problems at and tried it there, and it worked fine, albeit after a brief minute where it didn't read anything. I think primarily it must have been some unknown effect between the position in the hull, the marine goop and possibly how it cures over time, and the transducer itself. So far I took it out twice since, and both times it seems to have a minute of lag time, before it starts reading in water deep enough. It seems to help when I just dunk it in water to start reading, and then move the transducer around and try different spots inside the hull until it starts giving a consistent reading from a certain spot.

Just to update people, it looks like the problem has been solved. I scraped the transducer and marine goop or whatever it's called from the kayak, and scraped off all the adhesive from the bottom of the transducer, and then just tried the transducer as is, and it worked out fine. I could just lay it inside the kayak and it would chart things fine. I figured with all the stuff that's mentioned both in the manual and the videos online it wouldn't work like that due to air interference around the edges, but apparently it's perfectly fine. I don't know the exact cause of it stopping to work the way it was set up, but it almost seems like the adhesive somehow cured over time so it interfered with the transducer bottom pressed into it. I think I might just leave it as is, or simply glue the transducer to the hull only by the edges.

How big were those trout 405? It's funny you mention that. I had a mirror image experience at Meramec Springs. I caught a smallie there, after having caught a couple of trout and even though that particular smallie tied for the biggest fish of the day, I felt like those trout and in particular a smaller one I had hooked into and lost because of it's crazy jumps, fought better than the bigger smallie (granted it was probably only like 10-11" itself). That being said, I haven't caught many smallmouths either.

Griz, I will give that a shot. I did take a couple handfuls and poured it around the transducer but it didn't seem to change anything. I will put some more in. It didn't seem to me like the adhesive (Marine goop or whatever it was called) was weakening, but I'd hope that's all there is to it. Daryk, in this case it was Simpson Park where this happened. I thought about that being the potential cause at first, but it seemingly working for a little bit and then suddenly not graphing the bottom any more, has me skeptical on that being it. The second time I took it over there after charging the battery up, it didn't even read the same area as it started out reading last time. But I haven't took it any other place yet to be sure. Once it stopped it stopped all over Simpson Park Lake that I paddled to. I feel like I took it to lakes and portions of the Meramec (George Winter) that would have a similar enough bottom composition that it shouldn't have worked there as well if it didn't at Simpson Park.

I forget what the sensitivity was on default, I think at 5 out of 10, but I adjusted that to the max and back and it didn't seem to matter. The range setting for the depth has been on auto. I don't recall ever adjusting it. As far as the transducer angle, up until this week's trip, it worked fine for the prior 4 trips so I'm guessing the angle was good seeing how it's "glued" to the inside of the kayak hull. Even when this thing acted up Friday, the finder started off displaying depth fine, and then kind of stopped showing the bottom and reading depth a few minutes in. I found it odd but figured maybe I went into water that's too shallow for a bit, up unitl it just continued not displaying depth and I checked the depth with the paddle and found out it was easily deep enough for the finder to display the bottom. Then yesterday evening I went again after charging up the battery and it still didn't show anything.

Well, this crap is very aggravating. I charged the battery up, just in case that had anything to do with it, went out again today, and that POS still doesn't work. So much for all the good ratings on this darn thing. Couldn't get it to function for a full darn month.

I asked this in another thread but I figure I get more exposure, to get an answer. My Humminbird 143 fish finder worked fine for me the first 4 trips out if the water was deeper than 3 feet (as mentioned in the manual). I haven't recharged the little 12 volt battery yet. This last trip on the other hand, it started plotting the bottom structure and depth like normal, and then a minute or two in, even though the screen remained on, the depth and structure basically stopped being read as if it was in water that's too shallow. I checked with the paddle, and the water was clearly deep enough that it shouldn't have had any problems plotting it. The Fish finder has a battery alarm option where it will beep if the battery voltage is equal to or less than what I choose it to alarm me at (Anywhere from 8.5-13.5 volts), and if set to 13-12 the alarm would start beeping. So my question is can anyone explain why the finder wasn't plotting depth anymore even though the screen still worked? And does that have anything to do with battery power? Does the transducer signal not work past a certain battery strength while the display still works, or what is going on.

Hope this is one of the proper threads to ask for help, but I bought a Humminbird Piranhamax 143 about a year back, and only recently installed it on my kayak. I've taken it on 4 prior trips where I was pretty happy with the way it worked. It doesn't chart anything more shallow than 3 feet but that was stated in the manual and even though I'd prefer it to be able to plot even shallower I can live with that. However, this latest trip that I took my kayak with fish finder on a lake, it started out plotting like usual maybe the first minute or two, and then afterwards the bottom structure portion went blank like it was in water less than 3 feet with the screen still on, even though checking depth with the paddle, showed the kayak was clearly deep enough that the fish finder should've been able to plot depth. I normally put it on the black bottom setting seeing how at this early point I feel that helps me understand the information best. Anyways anyone know what might be the cause of the depth finder segment of it not reading accurately? Does low battery charge first have an effect on the transducer's depth readings and then the actual display screen, or what else might explain this?

Not that I do a lot of night fishing, but I've been scouting/hunting in the woods or somewhere fishing still after sunset, and I too always wonder what might be sizing me up as I'm trying to find my way back. It's still pretty cool that they have something like that here though.

Sweet fish. I tried Kingston Access once last year I believe, but I didn't know how to fish in such shallow water, as it was back then.

Cool, thanks Al.

Random unrelated post, but how deep are huzzah and courtois on average?

So it took me close to a year to finally set up that fish finder up on the kayak, even though in hindsight I could've done it with less time and difficulty than I anticipated it taking from looking at some of the videos. I just recently took it for a short trial run. It's definitely cool and helpful to have. My main difficulty is adjusting to the way the unit displays things. It seems that when I pass over some fish and try to stay in place to fish for them, the display of the unit seems to continue moving (I assume basically just rescanning the same area but as if the kayak were continuing to move, if I were able to come to a dead stop), as opposed to staying in place when I'm in place. Is that usually how they work, or do you normally have the image stay in place as you hover over an area and have it go in reverse if you back up over an area?

Seth, you were dead on with the trout magnets. I went today and caught 4 decent rainbow trout by my standards (12" or more). In principle finally catching enough to limit out (except that I released the first fish I caught, so not exactly). All but 1 of them was caught before noon, and the two best ones on white trout magnets under a float, like you were saying. The first one was caught on a white roostertail, and the last one on one of those red-brown Montauk flies with a blade. After 2 I was pretty much just going for a good last fish to put on the stringer, but ended up not catching any others. Some of the assortment of roostertails, and jigs I tried, got some bites, but the trout magnets were the ticket today. I almost brought a 5th one in towards the end with one of those again. I'm glad I finally caught 4 of them. I also got me some of that 007 bait you mentioned, but ended up sticking to lures of some sort, this time.