Paul Roberts

That's good perspective. Easy to get the cart before the horse, or the trough before the pig, or the tackle box before the angler ;D

Yes, a lot of water. And a big lunch too.

A Mapquest sat image showed wind, or ice, in the NE arm. That was a different image. Cool composites Mike!

;D ;D With VanDam up front this early he may be tough to beat. My guess is he'll stay on his fish. That's one top ten place locked up. Look at his cull numbers. Gerald Swindle and Aaron Marten's also have high cull numbers. There are no bass on beds yet down there, right??

Mike I just edited above. Take a look at the ACME.com image. I actually put a dark shirt over my monitor to knock off the glare from my office window. What do you think? Cool stuff we have at our desktops eh? Almost like fishing -well, the best we can do with all that snow out there lol.

That's a good point. My guess is they haven't dredged, only bc dredging would occur to clear silt, and being last in the chain it should not have too bad a siltation problem. It might also be dredged to operate larger boats, but there is a 10hp limit. I am not seeing the dark line you mention. Could it be a shadow? What map site are you using? The best res image I've found so far (should always check several bc they vary a lot) is here: http://mapper.acme.com/ Jacob, the sat image shown in this site is great. It shows vegetation really well. Lots to peruse in there. If the image is complete and was taken in midsummer, then clarity limits most plant growth to about 8feet. Judging by tree foliage color it's late June (a few trees still have new light green growth). Hopefully deeper beds will appear later. If you have an 8ft deep weedline, then most bass will probably be shallow. Unless there is a lot rock or wood out there. Shad or perch would help this too, but from what I've read it sounds like bluegill, crappie, and young bass are primary forage. In general, I'd break the lake into two general areas -shallow vegetation, and away-from-shore areas. EDIT: OK Mike I looked closely at the ACME sat image (it's really good) and can see much of what I think is the bottom. The channel looks silted in -gone. It's possible what I'm seeing is a plankton bloom, but it looks like silt. Bummer. Siltation is one of the most ecologically destructive things waters can have happen. It's SO common in developed landscapes it's considered normal. Well it ain't.

Jacob, As Wayne mentioned, here's the map I was looking at -very last page: http://www.metroparks.com/images/maps/stony_creek.pdf You should print several and keep a master at home to mark and label. Most maps are oriented with N being to the top. This is the case here. Good to hear that the bottom has some clean hard substrate. This is potentially great news. I realized it was less apt to be silted when I later saw that there is an upstream dam and lake too, which will catch the silt. Since this is a shallow lake with good clarity, vegetation will be key. Hard bottom substrate will create breaks in that cover that bass will hunt in, and edges they will relate to (they like to be near something). add in some boulders (gold mines!), large wood, and picnic tables, and Wow! I would be cranking, skirted jigging, and jigworming, the outer weed walls and breaks. These areas will probably be less pressured and, esp if you have sonar, you could find some real gold mines in those away-from-shore areas. I'd be fishing topwaters too, with that clarity. I'd be froggin', buzzin', SBing, jigging, and worming the shallower weed beds everywhere, but from the aerial view the S Angler Parking area and the W cove (Winter Island are) look esp promising. My guess is these areas are where most people fish. If the veges get dense in summer, you might end up shopping for a flippin/froggin' rig for those areas. The big pike are one reason there are large bass there. Lots of small pike are not a great sign, and I was a bit concerned seeing that there were no Michigan DNR Master Angler awards for pike there. The few walleyes (and supplemented) is not a surprise in such a small shallow water with lots of competitors. This one may be a spawning/recruitment issue as well. The few young SM indicate they are not competing well with LM in this water. The single huge one recorded in the DNR awards list (in 2003) was a survivor from a good SM survival year at least 10 years prior -that 21+"er was at least 10 years old. There is a clump of LMs around 23" recorded, that indicate great growth for N LMs. Says a lot about the lake. The fact they were lumped into a six year period could indicate some things: that they were from a good year/growth class (the end of a wave), or that a particularly adept group of anglers was fishing there at those times. The lack of such fish since 2005 could be that those "end of the wave" fish are now mounted on den walls, fewer anglers are reporting them, or you are going to have to wait for the next wave. It WILL happen. The other option could be that there is another wave still there, but in 2006 the DNR treated the lake to remove invasive plants, which included milfoil. This probably did not kill off those bass, but likely moved them. This has the common effect of throwing "dialed in" anglers (like Master Angler Mr Mosseau in the record list) off the mark. The DNR/Parks Dept recorded a rebound in diversity of native vegetation, so my guess is the loss of milfoil did not wipe out the reasons those bass grew so large. This would be a great thing to read up on, or ask your DNR biologist about pertaining to this lake. Real nice lake you have there. Keep us up on what you find. If you decide to make it your home lake (I could think of worse waters), it would be interesting if you gave us some updates over the season.

This is a really good thread. Great stuff from everyone. Most recently, Capn, RoLo -very wise. RoLo wrote: When you know what you need, this is what follows.

Good advice above. Here's another tack worth considering: http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1265905400 Go easy at first. I'd start with a small box, 'cause all those empty spaces just scream to be filled. ;D Add stuff as you need it, and you won't know til you get out there. Try to hook up with other more exp fisherman, and you'll gain needs, for YOUR waters, pretty quick.

Both rods are untried as yet. But from what I've read about construction and saw at BPS, you are right on in your impressions. First, it sounds like you compared an apple and an orange. The Skeet cranking rod will be moderate in action, as well as much lower in MOE. Maybe you compared it with a CL cranking rod -I didn't look to see if they offer one. The CL is a super high modulus blank, so it will feel stiffer, esp without any load on it. This fools lots of people not used to high MOE rods. I used to sell rods in a large tackle shop, back when graphite first hit the racks. Man they could be a tough sell when guys were expecting fiberglass and always said, "I'd like one with more 'action'" ;D I'd explain that graphite was rigid when there isn't a load in it, which is largely where the sensitivity comes from. But it'll still bend when there's a fish on it. While at BPS I can say that I liked the CL and the Skeet Reese rods the most in the price range. I likened the SR to Carrot in feel -very light (this is probably due to construction allowing less material to be used -it appears we're slipping into the golden age of rod building now ). The SR are softer than the CL, due to lower MOE, but probably PERFECT for a cranking stick. If that's what you wanted you probably just scored. Remains to be seen though. The ice'll break and we might just find those ~85mil PSI CLs shatter, and the SRs fish like wet noodles. But I doubt it. I think we both SCORED (I bought a CL -for jigworming).

Well... I've been dabbling in FC, as well as reading a bunch. The following are my opinions on it right now. In general, I've found FC to be more of a pain to deal with in general, compared to mono. The only interest I have in it is the fact that it sinks -the biggest reason for the sensitivity of FCs I believe. The second is it's "slow" stretch ability (not low stretch), which under light loads (like a fish bite) might offer some sensitivity advantage. Another MIGHT be vibration carrying capacity due to its density, but I'm skeptical at this point that that would matter very much. Anyway, potential sensitivity advantages are my interest in FC. The claims of "invisibility", LOW stretch, and abrasion resistance, are simply erroneous, or moot in the first case. IME (only tried several brands so far), FC is brittle (susceptible to shock as it is less elastic than mono), vulnerable to surface damage (which really rears it's head in knot tying skill requirements), and expensive. Brands vary greatly in "quality". I think this is less that some are of poor quality, but rather they have different qualities. Vanish is an example I think. It's a good line, but it's soft and easily damaged: like trying to use a light Trilene XL for heavy cover work. Most bass anglers hate it. Some brands do appear to have better abrasion resistance (none of it great IME) and some handle better. But beware that good handling often means softer and/or thinner. Like all lines ignore lb test rating and go by diameter, to match existing lines you know. Most FCs appear rated fairly thin for the lb test rating seen nowadays, more similar to Trilene XL. Berkley 100% is an exception -it's the opposite. So far, IME again, it looks like most spinning tackle can handle FCs up to about .011, with wide spool reels handing up to .013 OK; for an adequate casting range. But such diameters come through the guides making quite racket, and snub the cast down pretty quick. I do wonder how guide size and placement, as well as rod action, would help this. So far, I like XPS. I hear it's made by Seagur so probably Seagur has some good stuff, but I haven't tried any. Another that has been rated high (by testing) is Maxima FC. Haven't tried that one either. So...I am still experimenting with FC, for deeper presentations, and if I find it does not give me an appreciable sensitivity difference, then I'll go back to mono/CoP for the simplicity of maintenance. The advantage of UV invulnerability is not that large considering FCs brittleness susceptibility to damage. I end up re-spooling anyway. Two things I do with mono: cover mono filled reels to block sun when not in immediate use, and soak it prior to fishing if I want it to sink. It won't sink like FC but it does sink better when thoroughly soaked. Some worthwhile reading: Scroll to "The Truth About Fluorocarbon". It's in 4 parts. http://www.bigindianabass.com/big_indiana_bass/tackle/page/2/

Hmmmm... Yes..sort of. It is printed and sold through a small outfit. I bought it last year. Google it. I cannot remember the full title, and my office is torn apart right now -painting. Tracking Lunker Bass... I found it through Google -it's there. Sorry I can't help further right now.

My thoughts from seeing the maps now are: It's fairly flat and relatively shallow -much 10ft or less. Clarity looks good in the sat image. My guess is vegetation will play a major role. How deep does it grow? Being called Stony Ck I wonder if there is any exposed rock down below? Associated with weeds, rock could be great. Being somewhat urban it may be silted in places, esp up the creeks. The steepest E side might have some exposed rock. If it doesn't get much silt via runoff you could have more good hard substrate exposed that could be good near silted/weedy areas. Considering spawning season, what are the shorelines like? If that NE creek arm is not all silt and gunk, it could have a pile of prespawners in it. They'll pile up in places along the trench -a deadfall, a boulder pile, a cut not shown on the map, ... Lots to think about in there. It would be fun, if you fished this much this year, to tell us what you actually see on the water, and glean from your fisheries people: clarity, substrate, vegetation mainly. I'd also like to know how the walleyes are doing there -would say something. I'm going to guess the walleye fishing is declining, due to siltation, and bass/catfish (maybe black crappie) is picking up. Any smallmouth there? Any pike? What's the main forage for bass -yellow perch? There's a great looking point/bar coming off Eastwood Beach in the SE. What a narrow bar does, at a premium in such flat topography, is potentially consolidate fish. There's gotta be narrowed weed beds, maybe broken up into clumps, and/or exposed boulders/hard substrate there -maybe wood or a brushpile. If not, there should be. There's a drop off Baypoint Beach that might be nothing -gradual -but it also could be gradual then have a sharp component. In this lake a 4 foot drop with weeds or rock, could be worth your while. This is Michigan. My guess is the water just doesn't get too darn hot in summer. That bay around Winter Island could have slop/dense veges in there that might support bass all year. Get in there early before the veges grow up and look for holes, boulders, wood, or the old picnic table some hoodlums : dragged out onto the ice one winter. No, I'm not suggesting you do that. The big flat off the Shore Fishig Parking access has weed clumps -can see em in the sat image. There are bass in there. It is quite possible that being a "shore fishing access" that fisheries/park people have placed brushpiles to enhance it. Some stuff to chew on anyway. OK...one more: See that sharp bend in the creek channel up in the NE arm, off the Lakeview Picnic Area? The creek turned for a reason. There are tree roots there -probably a large tree, or a large boulder. The channel swings in a bit. If there is any cover there, like weeds, and the shoreline offers spawning substrate. there could be a pile of prespawn females there come April. Googled your lake: "There are at least 22 species of fish and 14 aquatic plant species in Stony Creek Lake. The lake reaches 23 feet deep, but most areas are relatively shallow. The variable bottom substrate, which includes sand, gravel, clay, and organic matter, provides critical habitat for a variety of fish and plant species as well as countless aquatic invertebrates. Unfortunately, several invasive species have become established in Stony Creek Lake, including zebra mussels, Eurasian watermilfoil, and starry stonewort. A reduction of Eurasian watermilfoil cover in 2006 has resulted in some recovery of the native aquatic plant community. Stony Creek Lake is known for its exceptional fishing. Bluegill, crappie, and largemouth bass are popular targets for anglers, along with channel catfish, northern pike, and walleye. Channel catfish and walleye populations are supplemented by periodic stockings by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The 10 mph speed limit on the lake adds to Stony Creek Lake's appeal for anglers, paddlers, and other passive recreational users. Anglers love 500-acre Stony Creek Lake, teeming with bass, pike, walleye and panfish. The state record crappie was caught here. " Here are some Master Angler entries listed by MI DNR for Stony Ck: http://www.dnr.state.mi.us/MASTERANGLER/MasterAngler.asp?qry=1&WBKey=04N12E Notice there are no big pike or walleye listed. Not a surprise for such a small shallow lake. There are some BIG LM listed though (23+!), but only one big smallie. Could be that LM are out-competeing SM.

J Francho and Jacob K are lucky. They both live in states with large water bodies, and active fisheries departments. Lake maps and fisheries info are MUCH more apt to available in those states. In CO where I'm at, the warmwater fisheries unit is in its infancy. I also fish small waters -the second strike against me for finding hydrographic maps. I have to do my own mapping. I start with satellite images and then hit the water. Sonar's pretty important for this, esp bc my waters are built on teh plains -flat as can be. If you live in a state with an active fisheries dept, and public waters large enough to support more than a few anglers, it's always worth contacting your fisheries dept and finding out what's available. In fact, you should get to know your local biologists. In NY anyway, they were very responsive and know stuff that few others do, or bother to ask about. ;)

Looks like a flatland reservoir. NWFLMike has offered some potentially good areas. Looks like he's gone to the source and zoomed in to find shallower areas near deeper/main lake areas. If there is a good popn of bass in that lake, then all those areas will likely hold something, as well as others. Interesting topography (altitude change) will likely continue into the water. In general, (very general -the problem with such long distance reconnaissance) flatter slopes are better in summer and steeper in winter. There's a creek channel in there too, and some smallish tribs that likely connect. Because the E side is steepest, my guess is the main channel is closest to that shoreline. You'll need to know how deep the lake is and what the water clarity is. But, I'm more with Crestliner on this kind of question. The map you want is of finer detail of the topography underwater. And that simply takes time spent on-the-water. You could also contact your State fisheries people and find out the species present, forage base, population levels, and other things like clarity and seasonal water level fluctuations and turbidity issues.

Thanks Tom. Yeah, I had that thought too, that not all waters are shad (pelagic) based. My waters now are bluegill and/or yellow perch based. I have one pond, that to look at it would appear like LM water, but has good SM in it. It's bluegill based ad the SM act like LM bc that's where most of the food is most of the time -in the weeds.

Use of, or proximity to, deep water is a nearly ubiquitous element of mature fish behavior. (And that is not saying that depth isn't relative, or that many mature fish do not have other options in some waters). But learning to fish the unseen is essential for consistent fishing through the year, whether it be a 5ft hole or a 30ft ledge. Fishing the unseen is a big challenge for most anglers I think. It was slow going for me too, and still is LOL, for different reasons now. I started deepwater fishing by recognizing that, by summer, the shallow water fishing would all but die. This was true across species: trout, salmon, pike, muskies, walleye, perch, and bass. In really shallow ponds, the answer often meant that time day (or night) weighed in heavy. But in larger deeper waters, the answer most often meant head deeper. My first deepwater bass fishing was without electronics, and mostly meant probing progressively deeper with jigs we didn't tend to have to go too far, esp for LM. I did this by fishing the deep weed edges for LM, or drifting over clean points or boulder fields for SM the latter found by drifting with jigs. We learned to read landforms and weededges, which told us something about what lay beneath. The importance of depth changes became apparent. This pic was from the first summer my Dad and I left the bank and ventured out onto deeper weedlines with plastic worms fished on homemade jigheads a #4 split shot crimped to a J worm hook and glass rods, sometime in the early 70s. I had my horizons stretched a bit spending a few summers fishing in the Thousand Islands region of NY, in which weedlines were around 20ft deep due to clarity. I also found that I couldn't catch smallies off GREAT looking islands, unless they had at least 20fow around them. Here's a journal entry from that summer. To get to know a water body without electronics pretty much meant trolling, drifting, or casting. It was time consuming but, over time, we'd find places that held fish. In summer, we'd hit the same areas but work deeper. Again, we learned to read landforms and weededges, telling us something about what lay beneath. I think MOST anglers still operate this way, even many with sonar onboard. Chuck-n-wind and see what happens. And over time, they tend to find areas and times that will produce some fish, sometime. When electronics came into the picture for me (flashers at first), the unseen areas opened up slowly at first. For bass I just extended weedline fishing to weed edges I couldn't see, and began to find weed channels, sunken humps, drops, holes and ditches too. I would buoy things and work them like a circuit. I stuck with my (various) jigs, but added cranks, SBs, and bladebaits like the Heddon Sonar and Cordell Gay Blade esp for SM. It was amazing how many SM could be piled up on a given hump, or LM on a given deep weed point. Shallow fish are more often spread out, deep fish can be really grouped up, and it was fun to try to find things that consolidated fish. This was entirely in natural lakes though, being in NY, so the diversity of structures found in large flooded reservoirs was, and still is, mostly foreign to me. I now fish a number of smaller waters (up to 50 acres or so), which are quite varied in make-up. Some are gravel quarries, others are small reservoirs, the latter have some sort of creek channel (or more likely -drainage), as well as the remains of construction. They are much more difficult to fish deep without sonar as the shorelines give fewer clues to what's below, and I'm only just beginning to fathom them. Each trip I add detail to my maps. It sure is fun. Here's a pic of a certain cove during a severe drought, to give you an idea of what can be hidden below. This may not be seen as "deep water" but during early spring these cuts hold fish, where the "flats" do not. Cast three feet off and you'd never know they were there, or how close you were. Last year, at a small local res., I met a couple guys who appeared at lake-side with float tubes to fish just as I was pulling my tube out at near dusk. They asked how I did and I replied, Only a few. (I'd spent a lot of my time mapping away-from-shore areas -slow going in a float tube.) They got all puffed up and said, Ah, you're leaving just as it's getting good! Yesterday evening we killed em! They don't bite well during the day. I waggled my head and said, WellI've got some things to learn about this place is all. But thanks. knowing full well that what I needed to know had nothing to do with limiting my fishing time.

Well, we're learning new stuff at BR today! By golly I'm doin it too!

Another way to do it, real time, is to look at areas not flooded. We do it all the time, but I imagine them flooded, with 5, 12, 18, 30, ... fow over them. You can do it while you're driving. When you start to see the bass you should pull over and let your wife drive! ;D I also know creek beds really well bc I've stream fished all my life. Flooded ones retain the features, but fill with silt over time. Now to keep more specifically on topic, imagine what technique would best get to those bass. Thinking also of individual bass' strike windows (which could be anywhere from 1 to 6ft depending on clarity and fish aggressiveness), I run imaginary lures, CBs say, at topography, imagining the angles needed to get to there. Shows you right away why hitting topography from diff angles can matter so much, or pull more fish from a given spot.

One of my favorite fly rods was an 8tfer that lost 6inches. It was stiff as a board. I loved it. I don't need to feel the rod load, my timing is good and I like a "fast" rod. That little baby has power all the way out, I didn't have to reach back, or wait, for it. It was there the whole time, waiting for me to punch. A wimpy tip is wasted rod. I used it to power a fly back under overhanging brush up in the headwaters of streams, where lots of trout would summer. Going dainty wouldn't get you in there. Going up in line weight helps crash through, but couple that with line speed and a very tight loop and you are in there in a flash. Give me speed .

Ditto. It's a new world. And you don't have to spend much. You can match or better that combo you love for your price range with ease. The sales from the big houses are a great way to go. Look at the clearance, bargain basement, stuff on-line. If you can go there, ask about clearance stuff; You may be surprised what you walk away with. If not, there's good stuff at reasonable prices at Wally, at Dicks, Gander, ...

Wow. Leave it to Tommy to get pithy on us. That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Catt fishes big water a lot, so his percentages might actually be 95%/5%. I fish small waters and have some ponds where the ratio could be more like 70/30 -during summer! Still, within these top areas there are specific spots that either hold most of those fish, or where they are most vulnerable to a lure, at a given time. The problem I suppose for the newb is knowing what's appropriate bass habitat, and when. The first is knowing structure and cover, the physical layout of the bottom of your water, second is the prey, third is timing -season, sub-season, weather pattern, daily and hourly conditions, all the way down to the moment you receive your strikes. This is the elusive "timing" everyone talks about, that's so important but we have little control over. So we plan, and react. What Catt is suggesting is, know where the bass are, or are likely to be if you don't know the water body well, and let those locations dictate what to use. He used a lot fewer words as usual, but I wanted to spell it out more, bc there's a lot in there.

Curious. Do they seem to hit it on the stop, or on the start?

Does this affect hooking at all?

Stiff! But not Faster! But, but....