Nitrofreak

Nice progress so far !! As far as the rod locker goes, the one concern that I would have about putting the rods in a tube such as that is, if a rod should fall or come loose from it's holder at the other end then the load on the rod tip could break the rod. To me, it would make much better sence to just cover the rods with a protective sleve, rather than have them shoved in a tube, and a bent tube at that.

I need you to trace it back to where the other end is attached, maybe we can figure out why it was cancelled.

A constantly producing color is a great head start to the rest of your fishing puzzle, for just one or two bodies of water concentrated in one local area, in my opinion. Establishing patterns is something that is common to us LMB fishing guys and gals for all bodies of water, however if you can find fish on your home lake and learn the important parts of fishing structure with baits and colors that work, then you will have a much better understanding of how to fish an unfamilure body of water should you ever decide to do so. It's always fun to experiment with different variations of colors that work well for us, don't be afraid to add/take away a small change, just remember the result of that change, for example you know black with green/blue flecks works here on a cloudy,calm day, but lets take away the green/blue fleck from the bait since the water is a little bit choppy today, don't forget what happens when you do these kind of small things. You stated you were basically over thinking things, no, I don't think you were, being open minded is a great tool for fishing, and one that gets very little attention.

The only time color changes should play a major roll on waters that you fish is when you become pro and fish hundreds of different bodies of water. Gin clear water has a completely different way of thinking what effect your bait choice and prsentation should be verses the stained waters the mid west usually has in their rivers and streams. If you primarily fish a local area and you know what the fish want, changes will/should be suttle as far as color is concerned, when we start talking about choppy verses calm clear waters etc...the one thing to keep in mind is how choppy? how clear? light penatration, yes, can play a roll in your crank baits, the choppier the water the less light penatration you will have, so if your throwing a crank that has reds yellows and or browns, the first color to go away will be the reds, if the water is really choppy a shad colored bait with silver and blues should be a better choice, or even concider a buzz bait in that scenario, as far as calm clearer waters, I will slow down my presentations, not speed up, the reason I do so is because the clearer the water the farther they can see, so running a buzz bait across the top will have an adverse effect and most likely spook the fish, unless you slow it way down, at that point I am changing baits to a slow worked spook or something of that nature, the presentation, from the cast to the technique is much softer, especially with the way the bait enters the water in clearer calmer water, soft as possible. You have a lot figured out already, don't confuse yourself with a bunch of changes, make them suttle, if at all, if your waters are gin clear, usually brighter colors are what your working with, light penatration is still very good even in choppy waters, so you may have to use a light gray instead of white for an example, if they are slightly stained, visability is around 4 to 6 feet, light penatration will start to have a little more effect, more natural colors work better, you may find you have to add some browns/blacks to your greens, if your waters are stained, light penatration is even more dence and dark colors and rattles work good. You have found what works well already, and you have done a great job in doing so, congrats !!!

OOPS sorry I missunderstood your statement, I know flares are only required in that area, I have them on the boat anyway.

I have a marker on my boat that says something like pull me over i need a ticket !!! Just kidding, it seems everytime I am there I get stopped at least once, sometimes two or even three is not unheard of lol, others who fish there have not ever been stopped, and one that I know of does not even have a fishing licence. So don't let that be a discouragement, you will love Anna especially in the am hours and late afternoon/evening hours, I would not suggest going over on a weekend like I just did until after the labor day weekend then it slows down a lot. If you do go over on a weekend I would go out until around 10 am and go back out around 6 pm. Never been there, not sure of the ruls and regs, thanx for the info.

Is it just a red flag that is required for that area? Yes that is the way it is supposed to be, out and ready, so every time I stop from now on I will have it out.

Is that a joke? LOL, do they actually give those out? I have heard of the coast guard doing it, I just was not sure of how much truth there is to that. Yes, 5 times in all, all 3 county's were represented, Orange, Spotts, and Louisa, I even heard the coast guard was there on Saturday, 2 times were by the same officer, the officer had a new recruit on with him the second time around, the newbe was being a kind of a pain in the #### but he was doing his job and I was glad to see them out there. He was going to give me a ticket for not having my throw device readily accessable when he asked to see it, it took me all of 5 seconds to open the compartment lid and pull it out, but that they say was not good enough. The other officer did speak up on my behalf and let me go but the newbe gave me a warning.

NICE FISH NASTY !!! Well I finally did it, I finally went fishing for the first time in over a year. I had a window of opportunity to fish Anna yesterday, upper lake was stained, mid to lower lake was fairly clear, started my day at 6:30, at 6:45 the boats, skiers and jet skies were already out in force, at 8:00 the place was rockin, I started out with jigs around boat docks and grass lines, all I got were small strikes, little fish, the further north I got the more stained it became, so I switched to darker colors on the jig and got a couple of really good hits but since I had not fished in over a year, I was rusty to say the least and missed, I switched to a spinner and tried to concentrate on the grass lines, but the battering of wakes from big boats made it very difficult to fish these areas with any kind of lures, got my first VGIF check for the day. I switched my focused on some coves that I knew, they had some deeper water access hoping to catch a few on the points or tucked under a dock, spinners were not working and neither were the medium depth cranks, at least not on the points, again the boat traffic kept me from having the proper boat position, so I knew the shakey head was out of the question there, so I tried back in the coves, nothing at all but small fast action strikes from sun fish, I pulled out of my last cove and got checked over again. I packed up around 10 am and headed south on the lake, the lake you would have thought was a holiday weekend by this point, boats were everywhere !!! I finally made it to mid lake hoping to fish some deeper structure, that hope was crushed by the sheer amount of boat traffic, however I was noteing a lot of dead bass floating around from place to place, from the middle of the lake to the bottom of the lake, I counted 22 from the 208 bridge to Dukes creek, most were in the 3 lb range, on the shores I noted a few dead fish as well a couple of crappie and a couple of white bass, This was a first for me to see this many dead fish at this lake, I tried to talk to some of the guides there to see if anything was up with the lake but the stores were just too busy with customers. Anyway the day was a total wash for me as far as the fishing goes, some of the sites were fun to see and some were not, I saw a jet ski get too close to some friends of theirs and spray them with water, yes, I did call the VGIF, but they never showed up. I also saw a couple of young girls on a jet ski run aground in some shallow water at a pretty good rate of speed and threw one girl on the back about 20 feet, yes, I stopped and helped, how many others you ask? NONE, the VGIF was RIGHT THERE and only stopped after the whole thing was over, AND I got checked AGAIN !!! After that I packed up and went home, on the way to Anna point I got stopped and checked not once but two more times, I am glad I got to go fishing if for nothing else to just knock off the rust, hopefully it will be a little better outing the next time. Good luck and be safe all !!!

Great !!! If i'm ever in Florida or N.Y. I will look you guys up LOL !!

A marker is not a good idea, the scent will turn them off, get a grub and dip it in jj's magic, one thing that will help is to slow the speed down a little, you want the blades to be just barely cracking the surface, you should notice a trail of bubbles instead of a bunch of water splashing around.

Good post !! Was the sonar new? if so it will have some helpful tips in the box. Understanding structure is probibly the most important thing you need to learn, it takes time, so don't rush it !!! Structure is the bottom conture of the body of water you are fishing, it is the most vital part of what fish use to travel from place to place, it's in short their highway. All fish will hold structure, not all structure though will hold fish, so how do we know which structure holds fish? simple, it's time on the water, you have to make the time to fish and fish often to understand your particular body of water. In these articals you will find so much information that it can be mind blowing to say the least, just because there is so much of it, but don't pass up the opportunity to read it all. We all know how to beat the banks early, we often get lost in the thought that this is the pattern for the day, after the bite stops, where do we go from there? Well if you have found a spot or two with a good morning bite chances are you are in luck, not far from there should be the kind of structure you are looking for, it could be a lake bottom covered in grass, gravel, clam shell, rocks or tree stumps or even a bunch of humps, an old creek bed, road bed...the list goes on and on. I would suggest using the Carolina rig, this rig is built to find fish and all kinds of structure, you have to use it to get the feel for what is on the bottom, and start using it as soon as the sun comes up over the trees, I would start out using at least a 1/2oz weight, with an 18" leader and matching the bait to what forage the fish are after, it may be a lizard, a grub, a fluke etc... If the water temp is close or above 80 degreese when your season starts, I would look for water at least 20ft deep, and have multiple points around the location. Points are one of the most important parts of fishing different structures, if at all possible find a place where two different creeks come together and form part of a mid lake channel or a V in the lake. Use your sonar to your advantage, scan the area for fish. Fan cast the areas really well until you find humps, determine what those humps are, rocks, stumps etc... go over it with your sonar and get a picture of what it looks like, if you find fish pay attention to detail, what was your retreive speed etc...make good notes you will need to remember this later on in the fall. Fishing in the heat of summer is/can be much like fishing the dead of winter, slow, experiment with it find out what they want fast or slow presentations. If you start fishing structure now it will only make you better in the long run, of course this is only the begining so the info is basic and condenced, but I hope this will help.

This is an important time of year to know structure. The fish are locating and frequenting deep haunts, I like a few this time of year, my number one in the morning right now poppers and super spooks, spinners around docks until it gets sunny then I switch to jigs and slow down, during the heat of the day when the shallow bite slows down, I usually bring out the c-rig and start fishing structure.

I would have let the spinner just fall through the bait ball, or I would have thrown a 4" salt and pepper fluke and done the same. This is not uncommon to see but these 2 methods have been pretty good for me.

First of all welcome to the forum !!! 2nd, Well DUH !!! LOL. Yes they are, especially around thick grass areas and lilly pads, they also work well around lay downs and anywhere else there is heavy cover. Please read the FAQ's. This post is in the wrong section and will most likely be moved.

You may have better luck posting this in the Southeast section of the forum.

Bodies of water that don't really have a creek or a channel, the body of water still has to have to be able to stratisfy in order for it to have a o2 layer, as mentioned in multiple posts already, nice job guys !! Usually the o2 layer in question is no more than 5 feet thick in average, in shallower waters, that is why it is so difficult to compare each body of water to another, so if it is ok with you I will give you an example with the studies and homework I have researched about my home lake here in Va. My home lake is a nuclear power plant lake, that being said, lets start with hydrology. Hydrology is the study of current bodies of water have, an angler who understands this will be much more successful than the average angler just there for the day, with a power plant the current is used to generate electrical current by using the waters current to propell turbines, in most of these the current flows down stream, in the case of a nuclear power plant however you have a much different picture, the lake is pourposely built to cool the reactors, with my home lake of 23,000 acres of water, there are 3 cooling ponds for the water to travel before it reaches the main lake to be returned to the power plant. In short what this means is this lake has a induced recirculation pattern, the water flows up stream, biologists have studied this lake and found that this recirculation pattern actually increases the upper layer of water in the lower end of the lake known as the epilimnetic layer, this increases the amount of dissolved o2 at this end of the lake. What this means is the upper layer of water holding the o2 spreads to much lower depths, which in turn decreases the dead layer layer of water or the anaerobic layer of water. The upper o2 rich layer of water can range as deep as 30 to 40 feet here even in the summertime, this means the fish have a lot of room to roam around at the lower/deeper/wider end of the lake, this area is often anywhere from 1/2 to 1 mile wide at times and an average of 30 feet deep, there are depths over 100 feet near the dam. Now lets break down the sections of this lake into 3 sections, the upper, the middle and the lower ends and look at the characteristics of each. First the upper, most of these type of lakes have almost river like stretches where 2 or more creek channels come together or confluences, better known as splits. Most of these areas are for the most part, generally shallow, in the upper regions, 3-10ft deep, these areas can be slightly stratisfied in the summer according to water temps, ever dove into a creek and felt a cold pocket of water under a warm layer of water? You are going to want to find the coolest water possible during the hot summer days to find these fish, they will generally feed for short periods of time in this enviroment, hence the early am and late afternoon bite. As we proceed to the middle parts of the lake we find the water here starts to get deeper on average, 10 to 25 ft., here the middle layer of water or metalimnion, is on avereage only 3-5 ft thick, this part of the lake is more like open expances of water and less river like, the water itself starts to become more clearer and deeper for the most part, it is here you will find that the water will stratisfy even more during the summer and you will have to understand structure and it's key to unlocking the bass and their travels, the comfort zone for these fish will often be below 20ft of water. As we head down lake it's here the fishing becomes even more difficult, the average depths are generally over 40 feet, most of this water stratisfies distintcly in the summer months but will mix in the winter, when the plants turbines are running the upper layer of warm water has been found to run 30 to 40 feet deep and can contain uniform levels of o2, while there may be a middle layer, the fish can comfortably inhabit this very often huge upper layer section of water. Sorry for being long winded but I hope this helps you to understand a little about fishing deeper verses shallow waters, and the effects that o2 levels have on fishing.

I have not had the chance to use the skip gap much, I bought the hooks to give 'em a go last year and found them to be very productive at keeping plastics in place while skipping 'em under docks and stuff for multiple casts without doing much damage to the baits I was using. I really want to try some more fishing with these hooks before I can really say, but I like what I have seen so far, they are a little pricey but not outragiously so, at least in the Gama, but that is the only brand I have bought so far.

Well since your profile name has 00 "as in 00 buck shot" I would suggest something along the lines of " this post has been locked and loaded " or " my name is mod, 00 mod, and this post is locked " lol, just a thought.

The difference between them all has a lot to do with the hydrology of the body of water, wether it is spring fed or a man made dam for power plants. The o2 layers differ greatly from place to place or from one body of water to the next. One thing to keep in mind is that during the summer months, the hottest water floats to the top leaving the cooler water below, usually in between there is a layer of o2 rich water the fish will frequent to escape the other layers of o2 deprived water, usually it is easier to find this layer of water in shallower depths, like the upper branches of a big lake or stream or deeper creek channels.

We are not even promised that my friend, whatever we do from the time we wake from within to the time we sleep eternally, we must do our best to leave behind our past in good enough shape for our future. We must do our best to give enough of ourselves to ensure a long survival of our species, some of us just need a little help along the way, bass are no different in that respect, although they are unknowingly doing their best, they themselves are ever evolving to provide the same assurance of survival of their species as are we and as we interact with one another. The only difference is we are knowingly taking bits and pieces of their puzzles and trying to give them the best possible chance at a long and healthy span of life, while others are taking pieces and not putting back, with things like pollution etc... It's not that I can't find other things to do besides go bass fishing if they all were to leave us tomorrow, it's what we did not do yesterday to help prevent that from happening. What would I do if they did leave? I have not a clue, but I think I would take whatever time I could and spend it with my girls. I am no tree hugger by any means but I do, do my part in life to help along the way.

My body will have long since turned to ash by then, Thank goodness I don't have to worry about such things lol.

Thanx for the pics !!! It's been a while since I have been on the water too, over a year now, I have 2 weeks before my vacation, I am going to an unfamilure lake but I am doing my homework and hopefully come home with some pics and my first small mouth bass. Thanx for sharing, looks like you had a great day !!!

Really nice fish, thanx for sharing !!!

Beautiful sunrise pic thanx !!! Looks like great day on the water too, really nice job !!!