Nitrofreak

I fish with a friend that lives close to a bunch of strip pits, I use hair jigs a lot, they work great when nothing else does.

How well do you know the structure of this lake? When you say the average size fish is 2.5 to 2.7 lbs, is that just for you or does everybody catch the same size fish? Is it a good idea to target larger fish? YES !!, If you have not spent time on this lake getting to know the in's and out's of where these larger fish live and travel you are not going to be very successful on your first attempt, unless you get really lucky or fish with someone who knows this lake and it's structure intimately.

We have the luxury of having a nuke plant on my favorite lake, in shallow water areas we can see temps up and over 100 degrees, during the transition from spring to summer the whole lake will warm to 90+, the fish will go deep to find cooler and or more oxygenated water, there are areas that are no more than 15 feet deep and fish will hang in those areas as well, but you have to find places that have the right 02 levels for the fish to be somewhat active, or you have to be really slow in your presentation, just as you would be in the winter. Structure is key during these hot days and hot water temps, look for pockets of deeper cooler oxygenated water or water that is covered and shady.

As catt quoted, get very familure with structure, #4 is the key here, you already know how good the bite is early and late, that means you can anticipate and duplicate a consistant bite,and where they are going to be, now it is up to you as to where they go after the bite has stopped, you need to figure out what structure they will be holding too and at what depth they will travel. The early and late evening bite is not hard to figure out, they are shallow most of the time during these times, it's where they go and what they do after that, that requires you to be intimate with all of the structure your body of water has to offer. I enjoy a C-rigged, 6" lizard when looking for/at deeper structure and bass locations, I also do what catt does, once I catch one or more, I will troll over to the area and look at it with my sonar to see what kind of structure they or it was relating too.

catt posted a couple of web sites on here in another thread, I am not sure where that was but they looked really interesting. The best place I have found for lake maps are either local bait shops or where I find the best ones are at the local state park offices.

You need to post this in the Southeast region fishing forum. Im sure someone will find you there, good luck !!!

There are a lot of good posts in here already about maps and what to look for, in my opinion, the first thing I always look for/at are points. Primary or secondary, really does not matter to me, I look for places that have interesting structure close to a point, old road beds, humps, old creek beds, etc...

He is looking for a fishing partner. Even though I like the idea of you buying the first round, the best I can tell you is to join a fishing club, learn and teach all you can, get as much experience as you can with other boaters, some fish fast, some slow, some are not so pleasnt to be with, others will be friendly. If you guys and gals want to know what it's like to fish from the front or back of the boat in tournaments or just for fun with other people, a club usually has several a year, some are just for bragging rights some are for money, either way it's a great learning experience. A well rounded knowlage of what you will be dealing with when you fish with others, especially for money, is going to do nothing but help you be a better fisherman.

This is going from North to South, imagine yourself fishing a flat grass bed and you come across an image like this on your sonar, this is what it looks like on my old X96. I am going to seperate these image's into 4 different ones, and take one frame from the begining, one in the middle and one at the end of a structure, the first is what appears to be a hump, but take a closer look at the picture, in the far right, the bottom gets deeper than the grass flat and there is no grass showing. The second image is still us moving in a straight North to South direction, a couple of things to note have come into view, the image of the hump has now moved more toward the center of the screen and has become a little more pronounce with some different shapes and some darker colors. The third picture is also traveling the same direction, but now it looks almost like the first one again. So with that, what should the bottom look like? this picture should give you an idea. traveling North to South, North being in the low left corner, South being in the up right hand corner, this is approx 300 feet in length. I fished this particular image when I first saw it with a C-rig to get a good feel for what I could picture on the surface, I felt pretty confident this is what I had put together in my minds eye. 3 weeks later, I went fishing with a friend that had down scan and side scan sonar, it was really cool to be able to put a picture together in my mind and have it be close to what we saw that day.

If you guys don't mind, I will help to give a mental picture as to what you see on the screen, verses what your mind should be projecting. I will make a quick sketch, I have no photo's but at least it will give a mental picture and help project what you see on a one dimentional screen.

90% of what is in my tackle box is some type of strike king product, very rarely do I ever have a problem, but when I do, the company also is no problem, and quick to take care of you too. All companies should take training sessions of how to truely take care of their customers from Strike king, but then again they should already know.

And then learn how to rig a Carolina rig and go fishing !!!

I for one can attest to what RW is saying, Strike King has some amazing products that work tremendously well in the right circumstances, the Rage Tail product has helped me to place in my last tournament by catching more quaility fish rather than quantity. I have also used other products in the past and was reluctant to try anything else, that was until I too got a "little" frustrated with all the hype about Rage Tail, He issued a "challenge" so to speak, while the challenge was simply to try the product, I took it to heart, having never used any of the Rage Tail products in the past and knowing that my friends have never had any luck with them, I decided to try anyway. That day yeilded my PB bag of 5, 32 lbs 09 oz, I still did not win but I now have more confidence in my deep structure fishing and my shallow cover fishing, do I still use the other brands? yes, but Strike King and Rage Tail are just another tool I have in my arsenal, thanks to him. He is just saying in short to give these products a try, to help us become better at our trade, like I stated, under the right conditions, I agree, I think these baits are hard to beat.

Cadence is key when fishing top water baits, you need to experiment until you find what they are looking for, obviously, you were close to a strike with what you were doing. If the fish rolled when it got to the lure it could have been your color choice too, I like to use anything that has bright colors on the bottom, especially white, one of my favorite top water poppers is a Hula Popper. The cadence I use a lot is a continuious retrieve, it does not give the fish enough time to think, all it knows is the bait is getting away and it does not give the fish enough time to think about it and strike instead, hold your rod tip down close to the water and use very small jerking motions as you reel the line, to make the bait walk, or if you are fishing from the bank use a spinner set up and pinch the line up against the rod in front of the spool as close to the spool as you can, this creates a stop/start motion and makes the bait walk without having to use the rod.

X2 Are you wanting to start tournament fishing? Why only as a one time thing? If you as a co-angler want to get some experience fishing, may I suggest using your money to invest in a good club first, in my experience as a co-angler here in Va. there are not many anglers that are willing to teach you new things during tournaments. I would strongly recomend a club that has a need for non-boaters and a good well rounded group of people willing to teach.

Ummm what is that? I use strike king football heads in 3/16 to 1/2 oz, green pumpkin or black

Stonewall river is really not known for big bass, max I would see is about 4 lbs, LMB or SMB, same for the Shennandoah in my area. Down size your jig, green's and browns mixed together work pretty good over here, a rage tail craw works great as a trailer in either bama or green pumpkin.

X2 The only time you are going to need your trolling motor, is when you are working shallower areas, if you want to learn how to fish deep, a good anchor will be one investment you don't want to skip on. Fishing deep takes time, it requires you to hold your concentration on your tackle and throwing in your boat position on top of that, just makes it much more difficult, especially if you find an interesting piece of structure.

Why did the jig fail? thats an all year round tool.

I agree, you really need to be comfortable with your boat not only for fishing but for safety reasons. Next you need to explore with your electronics, get used to what you see on the sonar screen, find some different structures and cover to pass over, ridges, drop offs, brush piles, rock piles, etc... note what these look like on your sonar and get very familure with the individuality of each one. Next thing you want to learn is your lake, get a topo map of the lake, study where all the old creek channels run, look for bends and twists, chances are there will be some pretty productive ridge lines at those bends, the best thing in my opinion, is to look for an intersection or a "Y" that is to say where there is two creek channels that come together as one. You find in cases such as this you will have multiple points to fish and a lot of structure to cover toward the middle. Get very cozey with your patience, ask yourself the questions as to why you catch fish here but not there, pay attention to detail on your sonar when you do start catching them and look at the structure you are catching them on, does it have any cover close by? etc... The C-rig and T-rig are going to be your two best friends for a while until you get to know your structure and what cover the structure holds for you. The C-rig in my opinion will be the one you want to get most familure with, it will give you a greater feel for what is down there, rocks, gravel, timber etc... Hope this helps in getting you started, good luck and be safe !!!

It really depends on what you want to fish for. Top water, weightless with a 4/0, ewg, gama hook Medium depth, keel weighted 4 or 5/0 ewg, gama hook Deep, C-rig, 5/0 ewg, gama hook

Weightless around shallow grass areas. With a keel weighted hook when I find schools of shad in deeper water. C-rig across grass flats or any deeper structure.

What type of forage is homework you will have to do, check your local game commision, they can give you some great detailed info on what each body of water you want to fish has, they can even tell you if they stock each body of water and with what. It's not always going to be that you have to match the bait fish as close as you can to catch bass, think about whats not in the body of water to attract fish as well, for instance, if you were to throw a lizard in there where there are no lizards, the fish will find that to be very odd and will most likely intice a strike. Finding the primary forage is a great place to start, but always be open minded. Good luck and be safe !!!

It is hard to beat a C-rig lizard over grass flats, or a T-rig lizard under docks or any kind of cover. The Zoom lizard has always worked really well for me under a lot of different conditions where, what you think should produce, in fact does not. That is not to say that any other brand is better at producing bites, it's just that all I have ever used are Zoom lizards, however the lizard in general is a great tool to have.

We have both, threadfin and gizzard in my home lake, the things I have read the gizzard shad can go deep and stay deep, as to what depth for either I am unsure of as well, the threadfin, as I understand, like shallower waters, the gizzard shad I think if I understand, will come from deeper water to spawn in the shallows, similar to LMB. There are times when I do find these schools in 40 feet of water, following structure, mostly old creek beds during the winter to spring transition, I can only assume these would be the gizzard shad. As far as your question goes, I am all about learning, so if you have a lesson, then by all means, preach on brother and lay it on us !!