ernel

Well, i have been fishing out of a Stratos for the last three tourneys that I have been in. The last one was on Lake Murray in SC. We had 25-30 mph winds with gust in the 40 mph range. With this amount of wind of course we had some very dangerouse conditions for fishing. The Stratos that my partner owns has made a lasting immpression in my mind on the durability and craftmanship. I can say that it was handeling 6-8 foot waves and still managed to stay fairly dry for the conditions. I honestly wish that I had video to send to Stratos for them to see what this 18 foot boat went through that day. The waves beat the registration numbers off the bow of the boat.

If you are on an area and are catching bass and they turn off, then I would definatly try going to another lure before adandoning the area. If I am catching bass on a ledge with a crank, then I will come back with a carolina rig worked at a 45 degree angle to the lip and will normally pick up a few more. The best part is that if it is a good area, then it will normally "re-stock" itself with new bass in a few hours and the catching process can begin again. Nothing like culling in one spot when time is short.

river channel is where the river use to flow freely before the river was damed. A ditch is alot smaller and did not normally have water flowing constantly. If it had water flowing through it constantly, it would have been called a creek, stream, branch, or brook. Ditches are created in a lake by falling water and then covered when the lake returned to normall levels, or were man made before the river was impounded. (Ie: along road beds or a farmers fields for irrigation.) Also the ledges are more defined on river and creek channels than ditches. The ledges are nothing more than the river/creek's original bank before impoundment. As far as fishing whether I see fish on the LCD, I prefer to see balls of baitfish if I am going to fish an area. If the bait are there the bass are not far from the area either. Yes you can tell what is under the water by what is on the shore line. If the shore is rocky, then chances are there will be rock under the water as well. If you see an old road bed going in to the water, you can normally follow that road bed under the water with your graph by following the hard bottom. (small thin dark line showing for bottom return on the LCD)

The way I see it, it depends on where you live also. Some places bass are already on the summer pattern before summer arivves on the calender. It is going to be more based on the actual water temp as to how long it will take for bass to move from their post-spawn areas to there summer haunts. Some places the bass will move slowly back to their summer homes, and in others it will only be a few days to a week after they have recooped from the rigors of spawning.

You can also get someone to watch your rooster tail when you get your boat on plane. If you are throwing a real high rooster tail, then you will need to lower your motor. This will cause your motor to not only over rev, but will cut down on the over all performance of your motor. You will have a hard time making turns at speed without the nose staring to bounce due to prop blow-out. Gas milage will suffer also.

Also the faster the chart speed, the closer to real time as to what you see.

When the transducer passes over a feature in the water, what ever is on the far right of the screen is near to close to being under the transducer at that moment. Once it has moved to the left, it will be behind the boat in your sitiuation. I would let the boat drift a little further and cast past the object bringing my lure back throught the cover if I were using a search bait. If you fell that there is fish holding in the cover, then circle back and cast to the cover from different angles without crossing over it again. Another option is to drop a marker bouy behind the boat to mark your location so as to make it easier to find when coming back to it. This also allows you to give the fish a few minutes to calm down if you feel that your boat passing over the cover has spooked the fish. Remember that the cone isn't that large in 20' of water. You are not seeing a large area of the lake bottom , just a small portion. The 60 degree cone will help some, but it will not be as precise as the 10 degree cone.

Your new lake is a low land resevoir that is apx 50,000 acres in size. You have 525 miles of shoreline to work with. Plenty of shallow water less than 10" deep and reaches out more than 200' from the bank in some places. You will also have sub-merged weeds in the 5-20 foot range also. All banks execpt at the heads of the rivers and creeks are gradual slopes. Deepest part of the lake is apx 120' deep near the dam, but not at the dam. There are 3 main tributaries feeding in to the resevoir, and 4 smaller ones average depth of the feeders is 30'. Water Temp: 52-56 degrees Water Color: Clear to slightly stained Forms of Cover: Hydrilla, coontail, grass, and some submerged stumps. Forms of Structure: Humps, points, creek channels, ditches, and flats Forage: Shad, crawfish, perch, and bluegill Specises of Bass: Largemouth, spottedbass, and striper Weather Pattern for the week: Mon: Rain and highs near 45 Tue: Mostly sunny highs near 50 Wed: Mostly Sunny highs near 55 Thu: Mostly Sunny highs near 55 Fri: Scattered showers highs in lower 60's with winds from the WSW @ 15mph Sat: Mostly sunny highs in upper 50's with a west wind @ 10mph Sun: Partly cloudy highs in mid 60's with a WSW wind @ 10mph. Mon: Rain with temps in the high 50's You are fishing two days. You are fishing both Saturday and Sunday. It is a tournament that you have already paid your entry fee and you don't want to loose the cash. (Some folks refused to fish last time without it being a tourney, so this one is. LOL) Alrighty folks here is your new lake, and all the prevailing conditions. How are you going to catch your fish. Remember the devil is in the details. The little green fish are finicky at best this time of year.

If you want a cheap, but good battery, then I would reccomend the Everstart Max from Wal-Mart. Get the big Yellow one it will run 65-70 bucks depending on whether you have a core to return.

Here ya' go: http://www.staminainc.com/paint.html

Well since I created this monster of a fishing mess, I guess I should add my approach to these conditions. Seeing as it is post frontal, but not a major front, (notice the temps stayed close to the same day to day) I would opt to start my day working the points. I would focus on depths of 5-15 feet, on the north east side of the lake, but in a creek with plenty of bends to block the approaching North winds. First thing I would do is find schools of bait fish with fish underneath relating to structure. I don't think the L/M will be in a full blown pre-spawn mode yet. Need about another 7-10 degree water temp increase to get them really staging and coming up. First bait of choice would be a chartruse/white 1.5 oz #5 colorado blade spinnerbait slow rolled and helicoptered down the points in search of active fish. Second and third choices on the same point would be a c-rigged tube (green/pumpkin spiked chartruse tail) if this area was in the slightly stained water. 1/2oz. black/blue jig with rattle if the water was darker stained. As the day warmed and the sun warmed the water temp nearing the 48 degree mark, I would move to some of the boat docks looking for fish that had moved up in the shallower water to warm themselves. 1st choice would be a slow suspending crank or white compact spinner bait with a tandem colo/willow setup. 2nd suspending jerkbaits and jig and pig get the call. Mostly focusing on the 5-8 foot range. If these two methods failed to produce, then back out to the main lake channel, but still on the N/E side, work the mouths of the creeks. Main focus here would be the fast tapering banks that contained chunck rock and break lines from one form of rock to another or from rock to clay. Black/Blue 1/4-3/8oz jig-n-pig bounced down the slopes. Deep Down Huskey Jerk other type of deep suspending jerk bait would be 2nd choice. Just my opinions on some early spring fishing conditions. I think next time I create a scenario it will be with 70 degree water temps. LOL ;D

MEET YOUR LAKE: Water Temp: 44-48 degrees Water Color: Slightly stained to stained Cover: Mostly Laydowns and docks in 3-10 ft. Some mussle beds in 10-15 ft Structure: Mostly fast tapering points with river rock and clay. Most banks are fast tapering down to 25 feet with gradual taper from 25-45 on average. Resevoir type: River fed chain, 3rd lake in chain. Has three seperate lakes feeding into this one Specise of Bass: L/M, Spotted, Hybrid, and Striper Forage: Gizzard Shad, Blue Gill, Bream, Crawfish Weather pattern: Rain on Sunday and Monday with temps in upper 40s. Partly Sunny on Tuesday with temps in lower 50s. Wednesday Rain with temps in the mid 50s. Thursday and Friday Post front with mostly sunny skies temps in the mid to upper 50s. Saturday, mostly sunny temps in the mid 50s winds from north at 3-8 mph Above are your lake and conditions. You are fishing on the Saturday following the front passing on Wednesday. How are you going to catch your fish? The same rules apply as if you are on the B.A.S.S. Tournament trail or FLW trail.

The easiest way that I can say to find an eddie, is to look behing an object sticking up out of the water in current. It may be a rock, a bridge pillar, or a log. A point sticking out in to the current flow will create an eddie also, as will an island. You can learn how an eddie works by simply placing a small piece of styro-foam behind the object and actually see an eddie at work so to speak. As far as fishing an eddie, I normally cast up stream and bring the lure down past the object and close to the object with the main flow of current.

I know that alot of people go after smallies as soon as ice out occurs.

What Earthworm said.

That sounds about right.

Why thankee Bud.

I fish several lakes that are operated by the TVA. Every year, they draw the lakes I fish down from 20-80 feet depending on the lake. During the draw down, the fish are moving out to the deeper structure, or they will pull back out over open water and suspend. However, once the draw down is complete and the water level stabilizes at the new low level, the fish will move back up to shallower water. At this time, you need to consider seasonal patterns. I am not sure where you are fishing, but the last time that I went the water temps were in the low to mid 40's. I was catching most of mine in 10-25 feet of water along a shelf that was 80 feet from shore. The shelf dropped from 10-30 feet. If you are fishing cold water, slow moving lures are normally more productive. With the info you provided, that is about all I can offer. If you want to add more info to your scenario, you can get more specific information. Most important for me this time of year would be water temp and color.

Forgot about a the 3 stage question. A three stage will charge faster, if it is set to the highest output. The only drawback to high output chargers is when something goes wrong. (Ie. the auto off feature goes out.) This can cook a battery. I only charge on the high output whenever I can keep an eye on the charging process. It only takes 1-3 hours to charge my bateries when using the 12 amp funtion on my two chargers.

I would not mix the two batteries. There is a slight difference in the make up of the two batteries. Also on my first post I should have siad that both batteries should be the same size (amperage), age, type and drawn down to the same power level. If not one batttery will charge before the other and could lead to boil off of the dielectric in that battery. It will take 18-20 hours to fully charge both batteries if you do decide to charge them together. A 6 amp charger split will be just like a trickle charge. If you are looking at a multi-bank, I would look at one of these: http://www.basspro.com/servlet/catalog.TextId?hvarTextId=45195&hvarDept=200&hvarEvent=&hvarClassCode=3&hvarSubCode=4&hvarTarget=browse If you have a 24 volt t/m set-up you can still use the old charger for the cranking battery. It should not be drawn down as far as the other two. This last little bit is just my opinion. If I were to buy a multi-bank, I would look hard at one of these

My father-in-law is a manager at a local Napa store, and all of there charging is done indoors. If you leave a small crack in the bootom of the door with a small fan blowing toward the boat, you should be fine. You can hook both batteries together red to red and black to black, and then hook the red charger lead to one battery and the black to the other, but it will not speed up the charging process. It will take the same amount of energy to charge both batteries. Your charger will still be putting out the same amount of amperage. 10amps into two batteries will equal 5amps per battery. If you want to charge both batteries at the same time efficently, you will need to buy another charger. Either buy a multi-bank charger, or buy another single bank charger and use both of them at the same time. With the cost of multi-banks, I just bought another single bank charger for a little over half the cast of a multi-bank.

Yeah, I would agree with Redtail about the cable. There is also a chance that the motor mount may be worn also.

Do you have hydrolic steering or standard cable steer? Is it hard to steer even while the boat is out of the water or while the motor is not running?

One thing that I have learned is that if a body of water does not have any vegitation, but has some type of wood cover you better throw something in to the wood pile. Also the edges of most strip ponds have verticle walls. This is as good as a rock bluff on a resevoir. It gives the bass a place to suspend at different depths without having to swim long distances to follow the structure. When having to fish clear water you will sometimes need to scale down the sizes of your lures. If you are going for smallies then scaling down in line, or using flurocarbon will help also.

All the pitch would be, is the method that was used to deliver the lure to your target. After the lure hits the water you can use any retrieve method that you choose. Seeing as I also pitch crankbaits and spinnerbaits, they don't work as well while just shaking them in place. The pitch just gives you the quiet entry.