Bridgeport 3-10

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

Launched at Bridgeport and headed into flat creek. Ended up with 13 keeper crappie in brush piles. Most were in 10-12ft.   Also caught a few up the James in 20ft.  They are pretty scattered out right now.I probably aught 40 short ones.  Minnows seemed to be the ticket. I was using slip bobbers and the bite was extremely light. Sometimes the bobber wouldnt even move

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

Went back yesterday and they were biting even better, water temp came up 6 degrees in 2 days, i saw 59-60.  Only caught 9 keepers out of the 40 or so fish. Only was on the water a little over 2 hours and i had a trolling motor pedal failure.  Anyone with a Motorguide x3 i would advise to get a couple of these kits to keep handyhttps://mercuryperformance.com/parts/mercury-marine/8m0089417-hardware-kit/.   A little plastic piece holds the cable to the foot pedal and it is a poor design and im sure it will break again in the future.  I called Ulrich and they had the part i needed in stock so i ran up there and got it. By the time we got back to the water the wind was blowing to hard to crappie fish for me.

Caught a whole bunch out from under a dock that i found on the livescope, mostly short fish though

[Quillback]

Curious about the Livescope view.  Is that a dock cable, that fuzzy diagonal line?  Are those blob like things above the cable in the upper left crappie?

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

The fuzzy line is the bottom contouring up to the bank.  And yes those dots are the crappie.  I just went from stall to stall till I saw them bunched up like that.  I think two stalls out of about 10 on that dock had a school of crappie.  Didn’t even bother fishing unless I could see them.  Kinda feels like cheating 

[curtisce]

6 minutes ago, aarchdale@coresleep.com said:

The fuzzy line is the bottom contouring up to the bank.  And yes those dots are the crappie.  I just went from stall to stall till I saw them bunched up like that.  I think two stalls out of about 10 on that dock had a school of crappie.  Didn’t even bother fishing unless I could see them.  Kinda feels like cheating 

well dah, just kidding. sure seems like the ticket for suspended fish. A rig is banned for some bass tournaments it will be interesting to see what crappie tournaments do.

[Bill Babler]

Would it be possible to ban PanOptics in tournaments .. I know at one time both Central Pro Am and the Old Heartland series banned Clear View underwater cameras prior to and during tournaments by participants.  I would think Central still bans them.

Kind of takes the  term fishing out of the picture.  You do have to make them bite and they do refuse it as much  as take it but it is a fish finding tool  that really puts the A-rig to shame.

I can see some type of this coming, just like it did with the Rig.

[Quillback]

I imagine the electronics makers would fight hard against some kind of ban on Panoptics type finders in the tourneys, especially in the big ones.

Interesting read from Blaukat on this subject:

https://www.bassmaster.com/randy-blaukat/lets-not-lose-mystery

[Quillback]

Quote from Classic winner Hank Cherry - Now, I think there is a bit of sponsor driven salesmanship going on here, but it does sound realistic.

“Thanks to the Garmin ECHOMAP Ultras with the Panoptix up front, I could see really good mapping so it was easy to see the indentions and the out spots on the causeway. With LiveScope, I could actually follow the herds of gizzard shad and I could tell when I would see a fish if it was going to bite or not,” said Cherry. “There were several key fish that I caught that I saw coming to get the bait because it’s happening right there in live action. If you do not have Garmin LiveScope, you are definitely missing out. It was a huge part of my championship run.”

[Bill Babler]

Quill that was an excellent piece, thank you so much for posting it, and I could not agree more.

Again here we are going to talk business.  I know right now some of these guys fishing Bass Pro Tour, FLW, BFL, and BASS are in somewhat at a battle with Garmin.  These guys were getting some really good discounts, free merchandise and some are getting a nice advertising check.  That is coming to a HALT.  Garmin is saying thanks, but no thanks.  We are selling more than  we can make, we have the most superior Live Scope, 2D imaging and by far the best down and side scan and we may not need a lot of you guys.

Garmin is just not renewing contracts with the pro's at the extent they were.  The guides can still get a discount, but it has been cut by 2/3rds.  and that stuff is expensive to say the least.  It is a decision as much as buying a new boat.  If I would change over to the extent that I want the retail price would be in excess of $20,000.00 retail.  Who would have ever thunk it.  With a team deal or a family/friend deal its still a super major investment.

[Quillback]

Yikes, $20K!