J-Doc

With side scan technogy, 10 sticks of dynamite......you bet! :-p

I used to be a die-hard bass chaser. Beaver is tough.....lets be honest. I still love to bass fish but I was missing out on about 80-90% of the fishery by targeting bass only. At this point, if it's got gills, fins, scales or no scales.........and bites a hook, I'm interested. Heck, I'm learning more about the lake and bass in general by opening my eyes.

Crap............ Now I need to go to the other end of the lake and have fun. You guys are really making my wife jealous and angry with me for needing to fish all the time. LOL!

The line you saw come up was definately a fish looking at your bait. Something was off and it didn't bite. I've seen that on drop shot presentations for bass. That's why they say its like playing a video game. So.times you know see the fish take your bait as it happens. Pretty cool really.

Those are some BIG arches for that depth range. The really fat-long arch could be a paddlefish because of the thickness of the arch. The long skinny arches are either gar or stripers. I’m leaning towards stripers unless you were seeing a lot of surface activity from gar? As for the noise, that looks like it turned on some fish activity at first and then the rest is silt and trash from the dam generating. That’s my interpretation anyway. That’s just it……with sonar, it’s all interpretation until; A) you start pulling in fish to confirm the arches you saw or you drop an underwater camera down and take a peak. Cool pics by the way. I think we should just start an entire thread on sonar pics specific to Beaver Lake and interpret each others photos. We could all learn some things.

Nice fish! I'd like to hook on to a few of those myself.

I feel your pain man, I truely do. NO BAIT is EVER as good as dynamite!! LOL! In other words, nothing is a sure thing. While F&F preaches the "Flicker Religion" on this forum.......nothing is a full-proof thing. EVER! Beaver is known for being a lake that changes not only daily but within a few hours. What is hot for a 4-5hr run may or maynot be the next day or even later that day. There are TONS of bait in this lake. Trolling has taught me that as I'm forced to watch my graph a lot which is teaching me more about what fish are relating too, why, etc. I have trolled over a lot of fish in the last several weeks and only caught a few. I've tried the silver/black backed Flicker but now F&F is on a hot new color and having luck with it. Point is, tie on a particular color on one rod, and a different color or even a different bait on the other. On July 4th morning, I caught a nice smallie on a Sexy Shad Rapala Shad Rap (SR9) and an almost keeper sized walleye later that morning. The Flicker only caught some hand-sized perch (poor buggers just get dragged for a mile before I realize he's on there). I'm going to try some other baits that will get down deeper and see what happens. I may find a hot bait for that day and I may not. Best thing you can do is mark waypoints or drop markers or something and get a run lined up and troll it 4-5 times and change baits. Find what works and then capitolize on it. After about 5-8 runs, leave and come back a little later and try it again. Sometimes it's got to be just right to get a reaction. If you're going to fish live bait, use some crappie minnows or some striper minnows over worms. LOL! You'll probably have better luck.

Sound like gar to me. Big long sweeping arch but no "body" to it in the middle. I marked a ton of gar in Ford's creek July4th as the sun was coming up. I fished one of the coves from point to back and out and saw lots of 4ft class gar splashing around on the surface. I was talking to F&F about this last night. I don't know what it is about gar but everytime I see a bunch in one place, it's time to go. The "bad kids" have moved in and run off all of the good ones. I don't know if it's becasue they are eating all of the bait in that area, or if other fish feel threatened by the ugly toothy critter or what. Every time I see a group of gar, I'm pulling the trolling motor and leaving for other water. Usually a main lake area and not coves. This time of year however........stripers seem to love to suspend about that depth range in the channels of large coves. If they were long and lean, I'd say it was probably gar.

Yeah..................OK I have to post this. I can't help myself. To all of the neigh-sayers and negative press that poor Beaver Lake gets saying "Beaver doesn't have big bass in it"; well I say this with total sincerety and the utmost seriousness...... B - O - O - Y - A - A -H !!!!! This picture does NOT do this fish justice as it looked so much bigger in person. Bigger as in LONG! This slaunch weighed in on the "extra lean" (notice the very small belly.....the fish that is, not me) at a very LONG 23" of lean largemouth bass. Weighing in at a tidy 6lbs even?? Some of you are thinking "So what! I catch 4-6lb class fish from Beaver on occassion". That's true but this class of fish should easily weigh 8-9lbs based on length alone and from what I've seen of Beaver Lake mounted fish over the years, this was approaching a TOP QUALITY size bass for Beaver. That and it's now my personal best so it's a big ole fish to me! LOL! Guess what this big-bug-eyed jewel was caught on......a 3" nose hooked striper minnow on a split-shot rig sitting on the bottom under a light. I told F&F as I was holding two rods at the time, "hey, hold this other rod. I think I have something on this one". Then the fight was on. Ole girl pulled so hard I had to tuck the butt-end of my rod under my armpit to keep from having her torque the 6ft spinning rod out of my hand. I was going to get up and fight the fish but I was too busy trying not to lose my rod and keep pressure on whatever it was. When she was netted, I thought it was a long walleye for dinner and F&F said....."No, not this one!" So I see a fat head and asked "Catfish??" and he said, "No....it's a bass!" That's when I about lost it and jumped from my seat to see this VERY long largemouth with eyes as big around as a nickle looking up at me. I've only bass fished for about 6-8yrs now and only 4-5 of those years have been from a boat and usually not my own boat. Until just recently, I've never caught a bass over 4lbs. That occured a couple of weeks ago trolling for walleye with F&F. NOW.................I have quickly upgraded that PB to a very long and lean 6-pounder! At this rate, I should catch an 8-pounder in a few weeks based on progressional average!!! LOL! If this keeps up, we're naming F&F's boat "Personal Best"!! LOL! SO.................... No, there are no big fish in Beaver everyone. GO to Table Rock, Bull Shoals, Dardenelle, Grand, etc. Don't waste your time on Beaver. LOL!

A card game of "Go Fish" ................well that just seems too cheesy even for me. :-0 Sorry.....I've managed to de-rail this thread pretty quickly.

Geez man! Get you some rod holders for that new swamp boat!! LOL! I'm surprised you didn't have one between your toes or in your teeth! (haha) I know.....all in due time. Trust me, I understand that completely.

I wouldn't say night fishing with me is exactly "evil"......... Torturous maybe....exhausting, possibly. Never evil!

I see a good number of vertical bass anglers on Beaver but not as many as TR I'm sure. I haven't trolled at night yet but that sure sounds like a possibility. Well......middle of night anyway.

A nice small mouth as well from the same trip last weekend. And another LM about 3lbs (OK......this one was in a brush pile up shallow....I confess) (Disclaimer) All fish shown were gently released and healthy to be caught at a later date. Even ole' bloody mouth shown above.

Enough about snakes.......I know my time is coming. Just don't be angry when you smell sardines baking on your exhaust manifold. Lol! Just warning ya.....publically! Hahaha!! Now..... As for fish in general, I have been lucky enough to catch some nice sized fish lately but the average has been about 1" shy of the min. size but they are all healthy and getting fatter. Here is a 4.3lb LM I was able to snag. Well.....technically F&F was trolling and I was lucky enough to reel it in and claim it as mine. Lol! This one was over 30ft of open water chasing a bait ball.....NOT in a brush pile on the bank. Ever notice the smaller fish are tight on cover near the bank? I know I do.

I was thinking same thing. If you check in by phone, the answer is no. Coves are not better than main lake. There are bass that live in or around coves year round and bass that stay on main lake all year as well. That's my theory based on what I've read and heard. I would troll, find a school of fish, mark a waypoint or drop a marker or make a mental note of where the fish were and back off. Ease in a little later and try throwing something small, a little different than threadfin shad, and about the same size. Live bait would be best but, other things can work if you work them slow enough. I tried coves yesterday and I'd advise against it. I think the moon phase has them deeper and in the channels or on staging areas. Basically they are seeking shelter from the tournament pressure and ski boat bombardment. Lol!

It's almost as if there is too much food for the fish. There is such a abnormal amount of shad, it's just shy of being a problem! LOL! I have seen large groups of shad all spring/summer. Today was another example of multiple groups in several areas for large shad balls. The high water the last several years has helped the bait population a lot by allowing shad to creep into cover and avoid "becoming dinner". Today, I tried fishing a spinnerbait and a few other select baits just as the sun come up. It was a spectacular sunrise with smooth & calm water and hardly any traffic for hours. It was about 10AM before I saw any ski boat traffic and it was seldom and not bothering me at all. After trying Fords Creek in 2 coves and no bites and little to no fish on the radar (unless I was gar hunting and then I found the jackpot), I tried a few other areas in the Rocky Branch area. After F&F kept calling me bragging about how many fish he was catching (LOL!), I decided to try trolling a bit. Tried it, no bites. We found a small fleet of striper guides and proceeeded to do the OAF One-Two punch on that area! LOL F&F got one side and I got the other. I caught a nice 14" and fat smallie that fought hard all the way to the boat on the way into the cove with striper guides. I trolled probably 1 mile without a bite and very little fish on the graph other than 2 groups on the way into the cove. We both trolled the cove and I saw a striper guide pull in a smaller striper probably about 16-18" using what appeared to be a balloon rig. So after getting bored REALLY fast.......I went back to a cove where I had caught some quality fish last Saturday. Key thing here was ............LAST Saturday and not today. I worked that cove with several baits and got nibbles only from perch after trying some GULP worms. I even tried drop shotting on the main lake later with GULP minnows and Powerbait finesse worm. Minor nibbles, not enough to take the bait. Last ditch effort was to troll an area where F&F was catching all of his short fish he was complaining about! LOL! I made a series of waypoints in a consecutive line in a particular depth range and then dropped baits for a run. While marking waypoints and dropping baits, a big cabin cruiser strolled in quietly and dropped anchor right in-line with my run. Freakin' great!! So.........I did what any angler would do. I fished! LOL! I came so close to their boat, I could have flipped a jig on their deck. I was so close I could smell Coppertone and cigar smoke! LOL! Between the kids jumping off the boat like it was on fire and the loud music, needless to say the fish I marked move off their spots. I did catch a nice walleye on the return trip away from the "party yacht". As I got it to the boat, I reached for my net. He saw "net" and said......."not today Doc" and shook off. Oh well, he wasn't big enough to keep anyway. Probably 15-17" at the most. I have learned a lot about trolling and most importantly, I'm seeing more water and seeing more about what the fish are doing so it's teaching me a lot.

Oh yeah. Where's my manors....

That's a nice catch! (fish) hehe When you can fill up a tailgate full of walleye, you're doing well. All of them were about the same size too which is good. Means there is a better healthy population than most folks realize.

Goofy fish......will eat at anything. Wait.....is this the camera that looks like a fish? If so, I could totally see that. Look like something from "River Monsters" TV show! Lol

I mean there is a point of insanity and the a-rig is on the cusp. I do like how one guy was in the top 10 and WAS NOT on an a-rig pattern.

I once saw a guy throw 3 of the 5-wire units tied together. Darn thing tangles on itself and catches every stump/snag in the lake with only 5 baits. I'd cut the line on 10-15 baits!! Lol!!!

How did I miss this thread??? Nice post and info guys! Oh and Nick that boat looks awesome!!

Boy you’re opening a can of debate worms. Well, I say that because some live and die by using sonar and some have them but only use them to see how deep the water is. Yes, fish school and stack up on about any body of water including Beaver. All of my photos below are from Beaver. The second photo using my little “Eagle Fish Mark” graph is showing a school of stripers that was near the Hwy 12 bridge. I trolled through there twice and only got a white bass. I even tried jigging spoons and other baits. Sometimes you can find the fish but struggle to get them to bite. I agree with what the guy said about looking for an hour before fishing. On a lake this big you can cast baits 100 times to open water where there are little to no fish and then you blame the bait, the water temp, the boating pressure, etc. Not realizing there were not enough fish there for you to spend your time and effort on. Finding the fish is key in my opinion. Once you find them, you need to establish a pattern by trying different things and logging in your mind what caused the fish to bite and can you repeat and build momentum on what you discovered. I’ve heard pros say they found an offshore stump with chuck rock around it on a gravel flat. Seeing how it was “different” in the surround gravel flat, fish gravitated to it. They couldn’t catch a fish casting 360 degrees around it unless they retrieved their crankbait at the perfect angle, speed and in a particular direction before a fish would bite. After casting to it multiple times without a bite and then suddenly catch one, the pro realized they had to repeat that exact cast to pick them off one at a time. Somehow the bait was presented differently and it caused a reaction. Does that make sense? Also, stacked fish that hold in a group like this are usually not active and just hanging out in a group for safety. Feeding fish are more active and look like the image below. The fish are swimming so fast, they make long streaks on the graph. Hope this helps. Crappie on a tree Stripers near Hwy 12 bridge Big ball of baitfish (shad) I think this is a school of crappie/bluegill with small bass below

Great. I just broke a sweat hooking up water sprinkler in the yard... Figures. Hope we get some rain.