Seth

Classy move by Ish especially since he isn't too far behind Lucas. I have new respect for the guy. After the incident with Poche, I didn't think a whole lot of him.

The past couple years were really good to me so I was due for a tougher year. Last year, I only made two sits and bagged two longbeards. I know quite a few others having a tough time this year as well so I don't feel too bad. Hopefully some of these henned up toms breed the hens and start coming to calls. The third week has been pretty good to us most of the time.

It wasn't what I was hoping to kill but at least I have some turkey breast to eat now and I can say I didnt get skunked this year. The gobblers just haven't cooperated for me this year and this jake was the first good shot a legal gave me so I took him. Still got a week of season to go so hopefully a longbeard will give me a shot before it ends.

I wouldn't have thought that many fish made it up the river this year since the water didn't stay high enough for long enough.

Sounds like you got it figured out then. if you have any more questions after you get started, don't hesitate and post them on here. One thing I didn't ask was if you already had a bracket that lets you mount the transducer to the lower unit of the trolling motor. On my Humminbird, I had to buy one and it was like $20. The older Lowrance skimmer transducers could be used without any additional brackets since they were thin metal. I'm not sure if the newer graphs use the same transducer brackets or if they are all plastic. The Humminbirds are plastic.

Here is my opinion. Console ------------ Use the GPS color unit here. Run power wire to cranking battery. Bow ------- Use the black and white non-GPS unit here Run 14 gauge dedicated power wires to the cranking battery. Route the transducer cable like the picture below instead of along the wires that go to the foot pedal. This helps prevent the trolling motor from interfering with the sonar screen. Depending on which model trolling motor you have, you may need to drill small holes in the scissor arm for the zip strips to attach to. The motor pictured is a Minnkota Fortrex, but I did the same thing on my Maxxum with small holes and electrical tape. The keey is to just try and route and secure the wire in the same path as shown in this pic.

You're only dependent if you choose to be that way. Like I said, there are many times when I don't ever bother using my sonar because it isn't needed. It's just a tool to help find what you're looking for, but you still have to know what to look for in the first place and that comes from spending time on the water and putting fish in the boat. A good angler with no sonar is going to fish circles around somebody with all the latest toys and no clue on how to catch fish in the first place. Now if that good angler knows how to read a graph well, he is going to be an even more effective angler. As for you finding brush piles with your rod faster than I can with my side scan, you're dreaming! I can graph for 5 minutes, find all the brush in a good sized cove and then hit each one. If you don't get any fish in a short amount of time, then move on. Regardless of whether you found the brush with sonar or the old fashioned way, it should have no effect on how you fish that piece of cover. That is the part you figure out with a rod in your hand. You're going to know within a few casts if there are active crappie on those piles. This sums it up perfectly.

I'm cheap so I buy the Luck E Strike RC STX jerkbaits. I've used them side by side with Megabass jerkbaits and honestly couldn't tell much difference. Both baits caught fish and neither out fished the other considerably. I've also used the stock hooks and rings on them and never had an issue. The good thing about jerkbaiting is that you shouldn't lose too many baits to hang ups which should make spending $25 on a bait a little bit easier to handle.

I caught plenty of fish before side imaging and there are many trips when I don't use it at all. Finding brush piles and hard bottoms away from the bank is so much easier with side imaging though. Sure, if you fish the same area a lot then you will probably figure this all out in due time, but I can go through and find it in a matter of minutes now. Having that ability can really help a guy out when fishing new water. I'm no longer limited to fishing visible cover only. There are a lot of honey holes hidden beneath the surface that you probably go right by all the time. Last spring was a perfect example of my side imaging saving a trip. Dad and I went to PB2 crappie fishing. The fish weren't on the bank nor could we get a dock bite going. I ended up going to some random coves, scanning them for brush piles, marking them on the GPS and eventually pulled two limits of crappie off a few of them. If I only had 2D or no graph at all, there is no way I could have marked that many brush piles that quick. This was all in an area where I'd never fished before so I had no prior experience to go off of. Side imaging is also the bomb diggity if you like to snag for paddlefish. There is no guessing involved when you mark them on the side scan. You have to be honest with yourself if you are in the market for a good unit. Are you going to spend the time to learn how to use the new features so that you can actually use them to your benefit while on the water? If not, then you may as just get a 2D unit with GPS and mapping. GPS is always nice to have.

With 4+ feet of visibility, I don't see why they wouldn't work. Just speed up your retrieve since the fish will be much more active.

We fished up below Truman Dam near the dead channel. Slow during the day until the last hour of light then the bite really picked up. We slow trolled minnows vertically all around the boat and fan casted jigs. Blue/white was definitely the best jig color. If we weren't seeing schools of shad on the graph, we weren't catching much. They would start out shallow and work out deeper and then start moving back in shallower the closer it got to dark. The bite slowed down a lot for us once it was completely dark. Our fish totals were 41 crappie/21 whites on Thursday and 15 crappie/10 whites on Friday. Friday would have been better, but we only got to fish a few hours during the day and then a little bit after dark.

We cleaned 21 whites and 41 crappie Thursday. We didnt get to fish as long Friday but did get another 10 whites and 15 crappie. Minnows and blue/white jigs were our best baits. The last hour of light was by far the best. The two bottom crappie were 13 and 13.5".

Not me. Like most, I have been in crappie mode. I may go next week though if my buddy and I can bag our thunder chickens early before he heads back home. We had an awesome trip last year during the first week of turkey season.

I am hlad to hear you had a successful trip! Trout fishing is just one of those trial and error things. The more you go, the more you can tinker and watch other anglers and put together some techniques that usually produce fish.

Glad to hear that. We are leaving early Thursday to head up there and join the party. Do you think we could just leave the boat at home and walk across the old channel using the other boats as stepping stones?

I'll occasionally throw a jitterbug on the rivers, but they are mostly reserved for pond fishing. A 3" green pumpkin grub is about as close to old school as I get and I'm not sure that qualifies.

I envy your gardens. There are just too many other things I like to do this time of year to make me want to spend much time on a garden. Once turkey season is over with, I will start focusing on my garden. Maybe that will change once I get a little bit older. Hard to beat the taste of garden grown veggies.

I'm glad I had enough of a video/computer game addiction in between wanting to play sports, fish and hunt when I was younger to make me go to college and get a degree in network technology. It now pays for my hunting and fishing addictions. I'll never agree that video games are what ruins kids these days because I am probably more addicted to hunting/fishing than a lot of folks (always have been) and I grew up playing plenty of video games. I still get yelled at for being on my smart phone too much.....

Does anybody with raised beds have a plant rotation schedule or just plant in the same area every year? I know with food plotting, it is recommended that crops be rotated to reduce the risk of disease. Is that something that doesn't matter as much in gardening since it's small scale and you usually add fresh compost to the soil every year?

We always plant pickling and a few slicing cucumbers. I'd like to start trellising them up a fence panel so that we don't have to dig them out of the ground. Do you all use a vertical trellis supported by posts or use a triangle or U shaped trellis such as a cattle panel stuck in the ground on each side near the plants? What type of materials do your build your raised beds out of and what type of layout do you use? I've been doing the traditional tilling and plant method of gardening, but would like to just go with all raised beds and not bother with tilling any more. I'm not really sure what type of layout I should use. I'll post up what we usually plant and maybe you more experienced gardeners can me me some recommendations. We have plenty of space. We currently have a 6x4 and a 10x4 raised bed that we've been using for our peppers and tomatoes. I'd like to do a better job of rotating the crops as well. Some say it doesn't matter for gardening, but I know it definitely wouldn't hurt. These are the most important to us 8-10 heirloom tomatoes 2 jalapenos peppers 2 sweet bell peppers 10' of cucumbers 2 zucchini 10' of okra 20' of bush beans Eventually I would like to start doing some broccoli, cauliflower and asparagus but haven't messed with it yet. Where do you guys get soil for filling the raised beds? I don't have near enough compost for all of the beds at this time. I usually make just enough for the current raised beds and then buy some compost to add to the tilled garden rows.

Maybe pulling this water will fire up the hybrid bite below Bagnell! That would make me very happy!

Must be a few around. KC Catfish had a tournament out of Coffmann Beach a few weeks ago and the top three boats all had over 100# of fish. http://www.kccatfish.com/coffman-beach-access.html

I think the water was pretty dingy just about everywhere last weekend from the recent rains.

That's kind of how my younger brother is. He is 25 and never was big in to it, but has started taking more of an interest in hunting and fishing the past few years. He is and will probably never be anywhere near as ate up about it as I am, but he does enjoy going along with me now and then.