Chris

:)I'm just yanking your chain Matt

This must be another Cali guy trying to catch a Florida transplant. I told you we should have never sold those darn fish! But NOOOOOO nobody would listen to me. >:(Thats why governor never got re- elected. anyhow... whatcha catch

pockets too

(Lets ponder this for a second if fish run away from the clicking of a transducer I wonder what would happen if you blast the sound of a Bio sonics.) If you think that the transducer is preventing you from catching fish then turn it off. In my opinion fish change their behavior when they feel threatened and will leave an area. Sometimes they associate a noise with danger. If its a heavy fished lake it might give you an edge. If for nothing else a mental edge.

Ahhh and another crankbait fishermen is born ;D

Start shallow and hit any cover available then if that don't pan out move out some. Buzzbait or spook if you see any fish hitting the surface. If not try a jerkbait or shallow runner and parallel the bank. Fish any cover fishing the outside of it first then turn around and drop a jig or worm in it because the fish might be super shallow in the cover. Also mess around with a slow rolling spinnerbait.

yep

Your going to have some fish that will move shallow and some that will stay in the pads or above them.

Fish shallow

I know I am beating a dead horse but here is some more stuff ;D Fish your crankbait! Most guys chunk and wind and in heavy stained to muddy water that's is the best way to go but what about super clear water. The baits that don't hunt still need to look like live prey. You don't just reel in a worm do you? You hop it, shake it and make it look alive. Well, there are times that you need to do the same with a crankbait. I know I talk about just cast and reel but lets talk about the flip side. First off I crank with a 5.0 to 1 reel most of the time unless I am fishing rattletrap style lures when I use a 6.3 to 1. You can get away with a fast reel if you remind yourself to slow down. Because you need a long cast to give a bait running room to reach its max depth make sure you have a good casting reel. If your reel stinks in the casting department use it for worm or jig fishing not cranking. In this game if you can out cast your buddy you have a good chance of out fishing him also. The length of your rod will help you casting distance. For most of my close fishing I use a 6'6" rod and for long distance casting I use a 7' rod. I like a long handle because I use a two hand cast. I also turn my hand that's closest to the reel palm down. By doing this I can bend my wrist more and get more distance on a cast. The reel should be in a position where the side plate is facing the ground and the reel handle is facing the sky. You should add another 30 ft in your cast at least. Open water (not bouncing it off of cover) you can use stop and go, you can stop and twitch, you be as creative as you want but the end result is you need to make your bait look alive. A good way to do this is to visualize a bass checking your bait out and your giving the fish your best moves to not get eaten. Mess with it until you find what works. Remember in clear water bass feed by sight mostly and you need to put on a show or you can go the other direction is to make your bait swim like it has issues and not in good health. In clear water I let my bait duck and dive and give it an erratic action. In stained water I fish it more stop and go or just steady. In heavy stained to muddy I fish it steady. If I fished muddy water with an erratic action a bass might have a hard time eating my bait and might miss fish so I try to make it easy.

Sometimes the line tie loop is loose and will throw a bait off also.

I tried to tell ya its time to fish.

You know I could give you a list of stuff and fill your tackle box full but I'm not going to. My point was to help you narrow down your search by vibration not name or style. For the most part I use the same baits most of you use but I narrow down what I use and when I use it based on the vibration and how it makes its journey to its max depth. This was a topic that I don't think anyone has covered so I did.

I do and I also try to find a old map if I can before the lake was made to find other things that a map or a photo will not show. Like the lake I fish years ago had a town in it that I wouldn't have known with out looking it up.

Well, the problem comes in when guys say they use this color for that water. This information is incomplete because they left out the main factor that draws strikes is the vibration. When you bounce a lure off of stumps and the bottom your adding vibration to your lure but people forget that most of the time when you use a spinnerbait you don't bounce it off of anything. So the idea that a crankbait only works when it hits something could be very true if you are using the wrong crankbait for the job. It could be that the lure your using is not producing the vibration that will draw strikes unless it hits something. Don't get me wrong I ram anything I can and at times its the only way to get strikes with my crankbaits but when the area is void of cover and still has fish the vibration draws strikes.

Any time you have to much structure or cover you need to narrow down your search because your going to fish alot of dead water. What I do is find something different in the pad feilds. Where two forms of cover meet, a depth change, or a place where the roots are thick and floating. Sometimes if you know where they where when the pads where growing green you can drop back to the depth change and find them again. Your best bet is hard cover like wood, docks, and rock for shallow fish they hold heat.

In Illinois I fish shallow until the lake freezes. I find loads of bass BIG BASS shallow. Fish the stems or anywhere there is wood stuck in with them or any change in depth. I fish a lot of rock or places where there is a drop close to the bank. Points can be killer. That picture I sent you was a bass caught in the mouth of a main cove caught 2 days before the lake froze. In the back of that main cove was a rock bank that I caught 8 more just like that one all on a jig. For 3 months before the lake froze we caught bass on a crankbait on main lake. Bass are cold blooded so don't think that its to cold to still catch them. Some days if you get some sun the fish will move super shallow other days they will drop into some deeper water or on the edge of the stems or right on the edge of a drop. You might need to slow down but you can still catch some hogs. In lakes that have a river or creek in them the main lake bass are still there but most of the active fish will be in the running water.

I fish a jigging spoon a lot in summer on points and humps. Most guys use this lure in winter but it is a heck of a way to catch them in the hot months also. Carolina rig and a dropshot is a great deep water presentation. Deep cranking is another tactic that I use a lot. If the water is clear a heavy tube or a jighead worm works. Don't be afraid to run shallow and fish because you will still have some fish that will stay shallow all year long.

Welcome to the forum ;D

when weeds are in the process of dying they release co2 after they are dead nothing. Fish move back in and backs of coves hold shad because of wind. Its the few places shallow enough to hold warmth. Shad seek creeks for the same reason warmth a running creek is a stable temp and high oxygen.

It could be a number of things. It could be that you have your fishfinder on fast scroll or your sensitivity on high which will make the fishfinder shoot a signal that's more frequent or louder. It could be your trolling motor is making a noise or from the start and stop of it. It could be the vibration from your trolling motor shifting in a loose bracket. It could be the shadow you cast on the water. It could be that the fish where way spooky and you where to close to them. It could be the splash of your lures. It could be any of the above or just a mental thing.

Remember Bubba at hole 13 at Tuskawilla?

Oh yeah and still do! You can get that rapala to just dive inches which works great on shallow flats or whack off a lip to a deep diver so that the split ring just is over the end of the lip. When you do that you can put your rod to the water and it will dive like 3 ft then lift the rod and it will dive inches. Your rod position dramatically changes the running depth more so than a regular crankbait.

Yeah its not automatic some baits do but you will go though 100s to find a plastic bait that will. With wood baits maybe 1 out of 10 (depends on the company this is just to give you an idea). With a plastic bait they don't wildly search but move slightly. I have had one Norman Fatboy that acted like a wood bait and hunts wildly but it was a lucky luck of the draw. I have had 2 Bandit baits do it and 3 other Norman baits that ran off center. The Lucky Craft BDS is one of the few plastic baits that are built to search. It moves about a 6 inches right and left (this is a guess). Some wood baits will move 3x that far. You just got to find one that will but the odds are greater in wood baits. When you find a plastic one guard it with your life because it will take some time and money to find another. Each bait has its own personallity. Some slightly move off center and some don't and others move wildly. You can have 3 identical baits wood or plastic that have different vibration and will run different depths. More so with wood baits you can have three that will have different actions but just looking at them they are identical.

Thats a Raul question ;D