Day 2 short trip.

[Bigfishscott]

Today we we made a short day knowing that the traffic would probably be heavy and a lot of recreational boaters have no ability of proper boatmanship. Started at 6:00am till 1:00pm. Spent a lot of time graphing both old and new water. Didn’t look over any water we fished yesterday. I always try to spend time on new water looking it over. You never know what you might find. First spot found fish set up on the side of a point in 19-20ft. Ended up catching 4 all about 3 1/2lbs. Next spot found shad but really couldn’t see fish but decided to fish caught 1 about 5lbs. Knew of a brush pile close by fish it caught another 2 fish 1 around 5lbs and 1 about 3lbs. Had time for one more spot. Graphed over the point right on the tip thought we found the mother lode in 31ft. Shad and fish streaking up into them. Backed off and fired a cast. First pop of the bottom bam!! 4lb eye caught 4 more the same size. All turned back to fight another day. Sorry no pictures today forgot phone in truck. God bless, tight lines!!!

[KC Steve]

Sounds like quite a trip! Which arm were you in?

[Bigfishscott]

We were in the pomme arm yesterday. This time of year I normally start doing my looking around at night. You can see your graphs real well and your not bouncing around all over the place.  At night your just looking over the structure to find the high % places. Where the fish can set up and ambush shad. I clear my graphs of all way points every year except for the spots I regularly catch fish over 5lbs. Most people fish spots and may miss the fish by 100ft or so by just fishing waypoints from the past. I don’t buy expensive graphs to look good hanging on the boat. They are your best tool learn to use and trust them.

[Ryno]

Structure like points? Or brush piles or  timber? Would also like to see what you graphs look like when you find “what your looking for” it seems like I mark fish all over the place but have a hard time narrowing it down to a place I should fish! 

[Bigfishscott]

Structure is the bottom Contour. Such as a ditch, long point that drops sharply into a channel or a rapid change in depth .Cover is brush piles,standing timber, big rocks,stumps or boulders.  Transitions are change in bottom hardness. Big rock to pea gravel or hard to soft bottom.

When I go out looking with my graphs to find bass  #1-hard bottom #2- change of depth close by( ditch, channel, humps,points) 3# food ( the most important) I could really care less if there is brush piles. If there are piles then someone else knows the spot. Any time you find big shad you can bet somewhere close there are bass. Sometimes that’s all you see are the shad.