mudkart

My idea was the full weekend thing, Fri.-Sun. might be easiest for most people. Depending on the week, i could also go on a Thurs. When? March? April? April is prob. better for me (and Andrew, the 2nd quarter has ended!). My guess is booking a cabin so far in advance is risky as springtime water levels can wash out the river and our weekend. If I'm way out of the ballpark, let me know. The other option is to put it off until summer for more predictable water levels, but more fishing pressure, etc. Just thoughts, lets hear some more.

This is Stoudenmire's site, I've seen this. There was an article about this outfit, and a float on the New, in one of last years VA G&F issues. I'll look it up.

Out last meandering thread in NOVA got deleted, but, it had, inter alia, a relevant topic I don't want to drop. The New River. I want to go. Let's hear some opinions.

I haven't used this guy as I do most of this sort of stuff myself. I got the link from Steve Chaconas's site, and he recommends the guy. It's only about 5 min from our house, so , I've been tempted. http://www.dominiontackle.com/

Wayne that pic is eerily similar to images of standing timber we found using the lowrance structure scan on the occoquan rez. Around the same depth too, 'tho sometimes deeper.

Nope. We're on Celebrity Jeopardy. "Ruff, just the way your mother likes it, Trebek." "I'll take Jap a n u s relations for 200 Trebek."

It's US patent 7,652,952. Claims 1 and 8 offer Humminbird relatively broad coverage on the SI system, which is true for most patents that are truly innovative (the inventors are given a rather broad scope of patent coverage). I'm not that familiar w/ the details of the Lowrance system, but unless their SI transducers are well outside the dimensions found in the Humminbird patent claims, it appears to be an uphill battle for Lowrance. Another option for Lowrance would be to argue the Humminbird patent is invalid, not enabled for the full scope, etc.

Burley is right, the portables are more expensive. I've got the portable 565 and have nothing but good things to say about it. It is (was) more expensive than the regular version due to a battery and mount/case. I found mine used on the bay for ~$100 sans battery, but otherwise in pristine condition. You can pick up the battery from Humminbird themselves, but I found it cheaper on amazon. Shop around and Google is your friend.

Great post. A friend had the HDS8 and it failed for the exact reason you describe, i.e. water intrusion, shortly after purchase. Lowrance couldn't fix his unit, and they had no exact replacements available (perhaps due to the newness of the HDS and high demand). So, they sent him an HDS10 that appears to be working OK. He's OK w/ the exchange.

What the other guys said, and I would add Aaron's Magic 2. http://www.***.com/descpageSFWROBO-RWFX4.html

Have you tried fishing at night? Apologies if this has already been mentioned. We see the same or similar situtations here in NOVA. IME, the fishing is typically much better at night or just before daybreak. My theory is the intense pressure on some of these lakes/ponds conditions the bass (at least the old, smart big ones) to feed primarily at night.

(begin Homer Simpson voice) must.....stay.....home....

Way to go to work. We must have been talking about different warm water in PM-land, the one I'm thinking of is not Four Mile Run, its well south on the Potomac. I've been surprised by the number of crappie I've caught on the SK red eye shad lipless cranks.

Ummm.....yeah..it was LB. Also caught two smallies and three cats, but the LMB in the pic was the best of the bunch.

Yes.

PM'd

PM'd

Yep, and I would add a majority of the floats organized on the Pacemaker forum are on the Upper Potomac.

Were they in a Bass Cat?

The lowrance is...ahem.....~ $2.3K. That is the 10" version, and the smaller screens must be less. But, wow, that 10" screen is nice. We caught alot...of shorties.... >. All on dropshot rigs. The bite stopped ~ 3 PM: this was last Friday before the snow hit Saturday. Looking back we likely hit the tail end of the feed following the dropping barometer. No complaints, I learned alot about the lake.

On the left of your pic are what the tree/brushpiles we found looked like. That the cover was wood was confirmed by what we occasionally dragged up. You could also pick out individual trees in some instances w/ the SI that I never spotted w/ my sonar (I've been over this portion of the lake with a Humminbird 565 a number of times). This lowrance unit also had something called "structure scan" (edit: its called "downscan") that looked like a high-res version of typical "downward" sonar. On his screen he could place both the SI and structure scan at once. Or, for information overload: the SI; structure scan; GPS; and color sonar all at once. The color sonar seemed to be the best option for finding schooled fish, with the caveat both of us are new to SI. I wish I had a pic of some of these screenshots, as a pic is worth more than a thousand words in this instance. Sometimes we saw "clouds" (for lack of a better term) on the SI that correlated to baitfish clouds on the color sonar (both images were on the screen at the same time).

Great post. Lately, I've been out on Burke lake here in NOVA w/ a buddy who just got SI on his boat. I cannot begin to tell you the cover we've found in just a few passes. The first day we tried it, we found a school of bait (and bass lurking) on top of a sunken tree ~ 10 min after launching. He got the lowrance HD10(?). I can almost read the depth numbers from the back of the boat.

This was one of the revelations of watching the entire video(s) (Bigmouth and Bigmouth forever, I think). Many times, the angler never felt the strikes before the lure was spit out: thus, no hookset. Watching those bass engulf a crankbait with two trebles, then casually spit it out was an eye opener. I believe Homer Circle was the angler tossing the baits as Glen Lau did the underwater camera work.

Some of the NHBA tx's do.

I'm a fan. The one I've thrown (red crawdad color) has caught me several decent fish lately. I disagree that they need to be retrieved at a "fast" pace to vibrate. In my hands it requires a retrieve no faster than other lipless cranks I've used (Xr50, Xr75, SK red eye shad, Rat-l-trap, etc.). It is a relatively heavy bait at ~ 1oz, and it sounds different than most other lipless cranks because it is a "one-knocker." I did change the sure set hook to a #4 Gammy treble. The finish on the clackin rap has held up to some fair amount of abuse: namely bouncing it off rip-rap and other rock cover. I can testify that the finish on the SK shad, although it is a fish-catching bait in its own right, would never have held up to such abuse. Then again, I've caught fish on some VERY beat-up SK shads, so, the nice, pretty finish may not be so important. TT did a review of the clackin rap, so give that a look. IIRC, they liked it.