J-Doc

Welcome CornFarmer! That's the kind of information you keep to yourself! LOL Now people will FLOCK over to SWEPCO. Sounds like you had a great trip. I've been thinking about making a trip over there. Sounds like I need to speed that up.

It really does have the ability to cast far and with ease. I admit, the first one I picked up felt cheap but I bought it strictly for the A-rig thinking if it lasted a year I'd have my money's worth. It has lasted about a year now and shows no signs of wear at all. I've flogged it with the A-rig and it just keeps on casting smooth. While I know there are superior reels........there are NOT any superior reels for $30 that I'm aware of. Truly a great beginner reel and could possibly spoil someone. After I bought two yesterday, I realized, I don't have a rod to put them on. Oh the wows of not having enough rods. Guess I'll have to go pick up a couple of those H20 rods now! LOL

Anyone ever use one of these? The H20 Mettle baitcaster at Academy Sports? I was told that the H20 series reels are made by Pfleuger so it's a quality reel for a great price. http://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/h2o-xpress-8482-mettle-low-profile-baitcast-reel-right-handed/pid-133325 I bought one last year and used it for casting A-rigs. I can literally cast the A-rig so far that I run out of line with a full spool. Not joking. This reel casts really far and out-casts anything I have including some nice Shimano reels. I recently spooled up some 10lb Segaur flourocarbon and a War Eagle 1/8oz spinnerbait. I cast it very gently to avoid a backlash trying to adjust the reel. The spinnerbait flew surprisingly very far. After I dialed in the reel, I can cast it effortlessly and get a lot of distance. Even in the wind, it does really well. I bought 2 of these today. One reel has a bit of a noise in it so I'm going to take it back and exchange. Other than that, I've been really impressed and especially considering these are on sale with last year's Black Friday sale price! I would advise trying the reel before leaving the store just in case it makes a noise. I may have the only one out of 100 that makes a rough gear noise. Who knows. I do know that I'm really happy with mine and I thought I'd pass along a great deal. Oh and I finally found someone who knows who makes the H20 series rods. Berkly and Shimano. I have 5 and I really like them because they are affordable, sensitive, very light weight, and a great rod. I have rods that cost over twice the price the H20 rod costs and for the money, I can't really see the big difference.

By chance was the trolling boat a deep V Ranger with a 4-stroke Yamaha? I've been seeing that boat trolling a lot lately. Seems like a nice enough fella. Both of us were trolling the same area a few weeks back. He was trolling awfully fast and would catch up to me quickly and eventually pass me.

Figures..........someone finds them. LOL I guess I was looking in the wrong places. I admit, I was covering a lot of water from the boat and not casting all that much until I would settle on an area. I just didn't find bait or fish and therefor I would leave the spot quickly and try other areas. Wish I could fish during the week more.

Well glad someone found some. I admit, i didn't check Coose thoroughly. I went into the cove on the right and tried to see if bait & fish were in the back of creeks yet. I suspected secondary points and that is the case for the most part but most of the fish on secondary points I found were still deep. They may have pulled up some today but yesterday the bite was slow and fish were pulled back to deeper levels.

My screenshots above are not that helpful. My apologies. Here are a few I picked up in my trip out yesterday. The original screenshot from my little Lowrance unit are on the left. My interpretations and comments are supperimposed on the original image on the right. As a reminder, sonar signals are bounced from the transducer to the bottom and back and fish are shown as "fish arches" because of how the signals are reflected back to the transducer. If you have a traditional sonar, you're probably using 200khz signals. My Elite 5dsi uses 455 & 800. The lower the frequency (455khz on the right side of the screenshot below), the larger the arch. The highter the freqency (800khz on the left side of screenshot), the smaller and more accurate the depiction of size of fish. Here's a nice screenshot of some suspended fish I found as I was leaving a cove. Notice the false echo on the 455khz and not shown on the 800khz? I thought it was fish suspended on a tree at first until the 800khz cleaned up the image. Notice the fish nested in the trees and the depth they are showing up. (455khz on right, 800khz on left) Same here... Oh, and this is just off of the marina at Prarie Creek! With all of the fish being turned loose at the ramp......it's got a lot of potential.

I keep hearing that the crappie bite and such should be dynamite this time of year in Nov/Dec. I sure hope so. I'm ready to learn some more techniques and catch some slabs. Yell at me if you want to go out with me. Be glad to take you!

I should clarify by stating I found fish mostly deep (a lot deeper than I would expect for 62-63 degree water), this is not to say that ALL fish in the lake are deep. There are some that live shallow all year long. Right now, those fish are harder to find and sporatic in locations. Sometimes you can find fish grouped together tightly. This report is also based on my findings at the Prairie Creek area, Coose, and just south of Beaver Shores. This doesn't mean that the upper end of the lake or lower end of the lake reflect the same results. Could be completely different. My advise is... For bass: You have to have a great trolling motor and be prepared to cover a lot of water as fast as possible to find a reaction strike if you are hunting bass. For crappie: 1) Watch your graph and mark spots of potentential brush piles that are holding crappie and sneak back to them later with the trolling motor if less than 20ft. 2) trolling doesn't seem to be an option right now if fish are too deep unless you have downriggers 3) Be prepared to use jigging spoons Catfish: I have not clue! LOL Walleye: Those suckers got sucked up by alien ships and cannot be found anywhere. I spoke to several people that have the same opinion, they just disappeared. I suspect they have gone back towards Rocky Branch or Cliffty and will be found in open water on ledges in 40-50ft if I had to guess. The one's that didn't get alien-napped anyway! LOL Whites: I'm pretty sure they are suspended just below large moving bait schools in deep open water. Like the main channel open water up to 100ft deep. Drive slow and watch your graph. You may find a jackpot. Getting them to bite a spoon is a bit more difficult. Better try multiple spoon combinations/colors/techniques. Stripers: You're reading the wrong post. I don't have a clue. This is my first year where I'm wanting to catch a striper so I know little. I do know I saw several striper boats in open water looking for suspended bait with lurking stripers below. Open water as in the places most of us are driving at WOT and not watching a graph. Hope this helps someone. I'd go again today and give it another try but I was out all day yesterday. I'm staying home and consuming as much hot coffee as humanly possible and resting. :-)

Yeah, it was a big shock for me too. I was really put off that the fish have gone so deep so fast! I mean it's only 62 degrees? I guess when you consider the fish stayed deep mostly all summer within 20-35ft (at least on open water areas) so it's not too much of a stretch to see them run down to 40 & 50. I bet it's darker than anything at that depth with only 2ft visibility at the surface. The rascals sure didn't want my jigging spoon either. Next trip out, I'll have on a few more spoons in various sizes/color/flash and be more prepared and leave some rods at the house.

Oh and here's a little motor related tid-bit for you. I've been using Yamaha Ring Free fuel additive for about 12-18gallons worth of fuel now. My motor is just a bit on the cold side temperature wise. Combine that with trolling and it can gum up your piston rings. The Ring Free additive has made a noticable difference. Compression came back up 5psi on all 4 cylinders. I also add Royal Purple Max Clean to help keep deposits and carbon build up to a min.. I have gained 100rpm by using the combination of the two and gained 2mph. Hey.........when your little boat runs 38 normally and now runs 40 easy......it's noticable. Just thought I'd pass along this for others in case they wanted to keep their outboard clean. Seems like the motor runs stronger, harder, and all the way around better.

Location: Prairie Creek to South of Beaver Shores Water Temp: around 61-62 Water Clarity: (+/-) 2ft Today was opening modern gun season. After a brief attempt at deer hunting (annoying story, won't go into details) I hit the water by 8:30. I initially went looking for fish and told myself, "don't wet a line unless you find something on the graph that tells you what the potential pattern is". So I hit up 7 different locations around Prairie Creek. Hardly a fish on the graph and if I did see anything, it was generally around 40-50ft!!! It wasn't but 2-3 weeks ago the nominal depth range was 18-22ft. This cold water temp drop from 70 to 60 and all of the crazy up and down air temps has the fish scattered and in a funk. I spoke with some locals later in the afternoon after a club tournament. Winning weight was about 10lbs and bites were really hard to come by. Baits used: - Primarily the a-rig - Rattle-trap - Squarebill - Buzzbait - Jig (briefly) - Finesse worm (also briefly) - Jigging spoon - Trolled Flicker shads of various sizes to meet target depth I know..........I should have tried several others like a jerkbait and dropshot more. Didn't see the point in dropshot unless there were fish on the graph. I only found one good opportunity to dropshot. No takers. Here's what I found: - Fish are scattered - If you find fish, they are grouped tight together and in places you would not normally look - Bait...........................where the heck did they go?????? They went deep and open water. That's where. - Found a massive bait ball directly over the main river channel in 100ft suspeneded around 40ft range with possible stripers and hybrids below the bait ball. (I stayed on them for .5hr with a jigging spoon. Not even a missed bite. They only wanted what they were feeding on and nothing else) - Main channels of coves, that's where I found fish. Suspended in the trees. - I beat the banks with the a-rig and a volley of shad imitating baits and did not get a single bite all day. This is the second trip where I have "zerod". I'm not used to that nor do I like it. I'm going to change things up big time next trip. I'm either going to the dam or way up river. Here are a few cool screenshots I picked up today. For anyone not believing fish are deep or suspended.....here's your proof. I was nice enough to provide my interpretations of the screenshots too. (you're welcome) Notice the fish nested in the trees and the depth they are showing up Same here... Oh, and this is just off of the marina at Prarie Creek! With all of the fish being turned loose at the ramp......I'd focus on that area if I had to do it all over again. There are a good number of fish there scattered about in open water (not on the bank). Break out the jigging spoon or drop shot!

I will say the water was more stained in Blackburn that I have seen in the past. I couldn't see an A-rig past 1-2ft.

Man I don't have a clue. My last trip was last Sat. and I tried Blackburn Creek and the Prairie Creek area and could not find the large schools of bait or fish I had been finding. Water was around 63-64. I was only out for a few hours that morning so I didn’t have much time to put a pattern together due to trying multiple locations. What was working was not because the fish were no longer in the areas I had been fishing. I managed to catch some on a dropshot as I had drifted across a small school of spotted bass and had fun practicing my dropshot technique. With water temps dropping off and probably into the upper 50’s by now, I’d say the A-rig, the A-rig, and unfortunately, the A-rig is the best technique right now. Smaller swimbaits and smaller A-rigs with one 4-5” swimbait of a different size or color is the ticket. As for locations, you’re on your own there. I don’t have a clue where to start. I’ll be deer hunting tomorrow morning but my arm has this unstoppable motion similar to how it looks when I’m casting. I may have to give up on hunting and grab my rods and go fishing while I’m out before heading in for the day. :-)

Not I. Only available for iPhone currently.

Here are a few screenshots from a recent trip. I used dual frequency on this one. This is a clear image of a large group of bait. Here is another interesting screen shot showing an even larger school of baitfish. The fishing is definitely getting better right now! Time to get back out on the water!

Since this thread has tapered off, I'm posting this here as I think anyone who is subscribed to this thread will be very interested in this new technology. I admit, I've often wondered why we did not have this years ago. I've often had the exact same idea that Lowrance has now come up with. A way to scan the water by using your trolling motor. Turn the pedal in which the trolling motor is headed and you can get live scans of the direction of which you are pointing/headed. Pretty stinkin' cool!! Some will disagree and some will hate this. I myself find it a useful tool. It's not a "fish catcher". To me it's a "fish pattern finder" more than a fish finder. If you learn how to use it and fully take advantage of the technology, you will learn more by observing the fish and then having confidence to continue fishing an area that has fish until you find out what they want vs. "Ah......there's no fish here" and then leaving a perfectly good area. http://www.wired2fish.com/lowrance-releases-new-spotlight-feature-and-sonarhub/

That's just wrong. Wait......you HAVE thrown fish at me before!

Penalty!! Unsportsman-like conduct by the offense. Penalty of 5 fish. First down for defense. No one should ever wish catfish on a basser! Lol

Actually..........that looks like a snakehead fish to me. Yeah! A snakehead!! NOT a walleye. If it were a walleye, it would be in the Cliffty area (since that's where you hang out so often).

I heard that was in Cliffty....

I second that................. My sonar shows blank on the entire freakin' lake. I'm moving to Grand Lake. I hear there are some beasties over there. No walleye in this lake for sure!

Last I heard they were just getting near Rocky Branch. Slow movers they are... I think shad stay in Avoca year round.

Does this mean you used...... .YOUR SONAR???

The bite has definately picked up compared to the late summer closed mouth bite.