J-Doc

At least you got out there. Water is still a little warm considering we've had cooler temps at night.

Odd that everyone else has seen them because I have never seen or heard of these before.

Progress! The bite is picking up.

You put your time in and fished with your bud. Sounds like a good trip to me. I too have lost my biggest fish on Beaver at the boat. I'll never forget that one. Mouth was as big as a Folgers coffee can. It was on a jig and it would have been my first bass on a jig on a rod and reel combo that I won in a raffle from Jimmy Houston. So I feel your pain. ;-)

Awesome. Get your boat fixed?

That boy's Bass Tracker needs new carpet.

Man those things grow faster than my 5yrs olds feet! That's a big jump in length.

If they survive like John Cena........the lake is in trouble. LOL!

That's a lot of little walters.

Thanks wmander. Hopefully one day I can figure out the spinheads.

Fluke or grub on the headspin? I have yet to catch a fish with those.

I thought all crappie did that. Must be the depth as you said.

I knew something was "fishy" when you said near vegetation. Nice job. No pictures? Shame on you. Lol

Funny.... I grabbed a 1/4lb on my way to the lake Saturday afternoon for spider rigging and couldn't get a bite on live bait. Finally a turtle bit onearly of the baits to let me know my HDS was not telling big fat lies. I even dropped a live minnow on a single hook to fish below the boat and couldn't get a bite. Crappie are crazy. Picky eaters. Eat when they want to.

Interesting that they ate the minnows. I used to buy some but stopped because I never caught much on them. They also never ran as deep as they were supposed to even using 10lb floro. And a 20" walleye on this lake is a record day lately. I swear if I had a dollar for every 15"-17" super skinny walleye that I have caught in the last year, I think I could buy both of us a good lunch and possibly desert too. I haven't caught a keeper sized walleye in a long time. I think I had one almost 18" back in June.

I (as always) have to work. Will think about yall tomorrow on the way in. It won't be pleasant thoughts. Lol!!! Wish I was going instead.

Actually I thought of you initially since you like crappie as well as bass. I figured this would make your head explode seeing a crappie eating a bass. Oh and I catch nothing BUT bass if I'm trolling for crappie or walleye. Seems like you catch walleye when you're bass fishing, bass when you're walleye fishing, and walleye when you're crappie fishing. Vicious cycle...

Yeah but that's no surprise. Bass will eat about anything. Including baby ducks and such. But a crappie or catfish eating a poor defenseless little baby bass.....Oh the horror!! Lol! I shouldn't joke. I did find the photo odd. Rare to see a crappie eating bass of that size.

I guess crappie are also now a hated species by bass anglers. This was found floating today on Beaver Lake and sent to me via messenger. And all this time I've been investing in crappie jigs when I should have invested in big swimbaits! (kidding)

PB&J is the only color I get bites on with the Ned rig. No idea why. I've just excepted it. Lol

Funny we talk about color doesn't matter when someone in the Beaver forum just posted a report and indicated a particular color was the only thing that got bites out of at least 4 colors. I've also noticed this over the years and that one color will outperform the other colors of the same exact bait and conditions. CANNOT figure out why because at 15-18ft, that color should be practically invisible due to light spectrums. I've also seen yet another color combo that will outperform that color in dirtier water as well. So I attributed it to the better performing color because it WAS more visible. In clear water, it doesn't do as well because it is so visible. So......MAYBE, the bait has to be just visible enough to make a silhouette and have the right action. If too colorful, they tend to shy away? Don't know. But it's what Iversion been observing in the last year or so.

Welcome to the pains of knowing what's in the lake and how frustrating it is to not being able to catch them. I typically use side scan for structure only but recently changed the color pallette to gray and it seems to show fish easier. I use gray on downs can too. Sensitivity and contrast is typically on auto however I may tweak it a little if it shows what I feel is a better picture. They say you should play with the color palettes as each has a better use for certain situations. Funny how one color gets bites and the others do not. I have not figured this out yet. White typically disappears at that depth. Some days they want one color, other days they want another color. Find out which color works best overall and then buy a bunch of those. And don't even tell your buddies which color that is. Some things....you just keep to yourself. :-) There are definitely lots of fish in Beaver and the bait population is going to make a hard winter for fishing. Once the shad kill occurs, that's all they will want. So get stocked up on some spoons and get ready. That HDS will help this winter.

I've had similar situations where I tried to match a particular worm color but it wasn't exact. I wasn't catching and the other guy was. Once I tried his worm, I started catching. I've also trolled cranks where one color variation outperforms the other almost everytime. I think it's because it's more visible than the other is the only reason. So color plays a factor and can impact a bite. But vibration and presentation behavior seems to be the larger factor for me at least. Recently, going smaller has not done anything for me and it seems going faster or slightly larger than the gross population of bait we have is doing well.

I see 51 reasons why I throw a worm.

^^^ This..... We all use them. Therefor we are all guilty of effecting the fish by using plastics. Its amazing that the fish was in the process of passing this. DO NOT THROW PLASTICS OVERBOARD!