J-Doc

Hey that's Beaver. This year has been an exceptionally tough year at times but also a rewarding year. The lake fishes as a pattern lake and patterns have been all over the charts with some very strange fishing conditions. Glad you had fun and hope you can make it back next year!

They do. But this year, I have not seen the normal activity. Usually around Rocky Branch this time of year you can find a school.

Good luck!! Sounds like you will do well.

Needs a jackplate and a 20hp tiller motor with a jet propulsion. Lol!!! Looks like it would be a hoot to drive.

I had a pair of Cabelas rod holders mounted on rails on my old boat. They worked fine. Easy to remove the holders and the mounts we're low profile and strong. $20 each. I transferred them to my new boat and still use them. Been a couple years now and show no wear or sign of deterioration. The onesike shown above are nice two if you have a rail system to mount to. Or for spider rigging. For trolling, I prefer a larger rod holder.

Yeah, what type of mount do you want? Do you have rails to mount on? Or just a flat surface ?

Nice! Crappie have hidden from me this year.

There are cruisers launched south of 12 and other marinas (Hickory, Horseshoe, War Eagle) so they will be out unless it's storming. Even then, they risk it with lightening. Lots of logs under the surface up river too.

Fishing wise, no. You will definitely need the following however: - Signal flares - extra life jackets - and a 50cal mounted on the bow to combat offending boaters who are about to sink you by running into your vessel (not really) This time of year last year, was actually pretty decent early. With high water and SEVERE boat traffic this year, you'd better get there well before daylight and capitalize on the early topwater bite. Then look for them on main lake areas.

You're a better man than I Mr Bill. I would have asked what's going on, suggested to pull the trailer up as you did and once the curse word was unfurled like recent flags waiving around.... I'd walk away and say.. "Time to clean the gene pool"

Congrats! That first one is always memorable.

I've been saying it for years. Chartreuse dynamite. Lol!!

Trolling seems to be a random chance of luck these days finding the right depth, bait, path, contour, etc. Trolling is astill complex as anything else if not more complex. People that don't troll or troll correctly don't get it. They think it's a random cast a bait out and drive the boat. So much more than that. Now finding a pattern lately (in reference to my earlier statement of luck) seems to be just cast a bait out and drive the boat. Lol!! But once you find the pattern you can make the most of it.

I'd trade you a few zero days for your lousy report. Better than some of mine this year. ;-) Especially the striper.

Correct. Straight down. Nothing in the way blocking it's signal. Try kicking the sensitivity up and turning the surface clarity up. Maybe that might help. I don't know the Bird units that well.

Running the settings on automatic is best. If you're not seeing arches, there is an install problem. Shoot thru hull by chance? That setup restricts the sensitivity some....but should see arches. Is transducer mounted flat and level? Or rotated upward to one degree or another? Start there.

Yep, there were 3 good ones caught. Lots of logs floating too. But it was nice and peaceful all morning.

Looks like a big white to me but....I've seen some mixed hybrids and whites where it was almost impossible to tell the difference. Usually the tongue patch is split into two separate pat he's on whites and one patch on hubrids. But I've seen some that had two patches so close together it was hard to determine if it had two or a single. The tongue patch is definitely the deciding factor. The broken lines on the sides are also an indicator.

Rocky B. I'd avoid the dam. Been there 3-4 times now. Confirmed why I don't fish there much.

In all honesty, I stopped posting reports. Mainly because I haven't found much worth reporting. This year has been tough on me as I can find fish, just can't always connect on them. I've grown very tired of watching fish on my graph swim up to the bait, look at it and then swim off. I've tried varying baits, retrieves, varying how I present the bait on dropshot (usually how I see fish swim up on the graph) and I either get a bunch of short strikers or I miss the hookset. It's been a tough year for me. I've caught some fish and when I was catching them consistently, I was on some bigger fish. My last trip (Saturday) was about the straw that broke the camels back. - Had a ski boat cross my bow by about 30ft sending a 4ft wake over my bow as I was idling (completely didn't care that I was there) - Had two ski boats come off plane within 60ft before colliding with me and then idle right over my fishing line (thought I was going to get spooled with my line in their prop) - Had someone pull a tube within 80ft of the ramp I was launching sending my boat up and off the trailer before I was ready(there's not a no wake zone at that ramp) - So much boat traffic I couldn't stay on plane without beating my boat to death and I can run across rough water pretty easily in my rig but cris-crossing wakes make some steep cresting waves - And I lost my front graph cover after it flew off from crashing a ski boat wake - To make matters worse, I dropped live minnows down on fish, watched a small school come up, look at the bait and then swim away So no reports from me for a while. Beaver is becoming a ski-boat/cigarette boat lake and it's over-run with boaters. It's making it quite difficult to fish these days. Even other anglers are spot jumping each other more frequently, waking each other, etc.

Because the stripers ate them all! LOL! (kidding)

Small world. I was just in Ft. Myers last week! And I drove up to Punta Gorda to take my son to the muscle car museum. Over 200 Chevy muscle cars (40+ Vettes, 30+ Camaros, etc.). Definitely worth the trip!

Could be both. A sharp drop off close to a good source. The food source could be a school of bait roaming open water.

Since like WHEN? ;-)

Because that ledge "is" the closest cover in that area.