nwoods

Thank you for this information, this would explain a lot. Great post!

That's an award winning cast !

This model here is essentially the one I have and you can see there is a mass above the fish then all the fish symbols everywhere, this is basically what I saw all day Sunday.

Awesome, thanks for the input, I feel kinda silly owning a depth finder and just now being able to understand it properly

Wow! Thank you for that information, very good to have! Yeah we had good luck on it once, but then the other day just brutal, and we were curious if it was like that for everyone or if we just were horrible fishermen. I think we want to try some other lakes, but with it being the closest lake to us (of any size) we wanted to fish it more and get into hopefully larger bass. Not really MORE , but really BIGGER bass. But, anyways, thank you again for that great information!

On my finder, there are fish symbols and different sizes of fish symbols, I could easily see how it could pick up vegitation and represent it as a fish. It gets a little confusing it becaues you will see what looks like vegitation on the finder and then it will also show fish symbols either below it or sometimes in it.

Ok, thank you guys for the valuable feed back! Any tips for fishing standard lakes with broken trees and stumps as main structure?

Here I am posting an example of what I am talking about, I have a Humminbird so this is purely a close example. I want to know what direction that ditch is going its it is parallel to me or perpidicular ?

Sorry guys for the crazy number of posts, but also on the finder it would show some suspended weeds or moss and then show the fish under it, usually at about 8-9 foot deep in 15 ft water. So I think it was fairly accurate. And thanks again to everyone who is posting and helping me out!

Along with the topic of fish on the finder, I do need a tip on how to read it. It scrolls left to right and my transducer is located on the back of the boat, so should I be reading it as in front to back or left to right like it is showing. So when I see a ditch I know where it actually is and which way it is running.

Yeah that was exactly the weather, not a single cloud to be seen and about 65 in the morning up to about 80 at noon. And I guess I can just assume that it was showing actual fish, I like to think my fish finder is dependable. I mainly only use it for depth and temp and for locating structure, dips, and ditches. But when you see fish all over it you cant help be get excited.

No, its actually moss, form the boat it looks like it is about 1' down into the water and they look like huge just balls of mass coming from the ground up, you would think it is a mine field of moss. When I drag a lure through it my lure is covered in vibrate green slimey moss. The whole lake isnt this way, mainly just back on the coves. There several weed beds but mainly moss in the coves.

Thanks for the reply, that very well could have been the case, it stormed about 2 days prior and the air did become chilly, the water temp dropped from 83 to 74.

And it is a fairly decent sized lake, so surely ALL the fish wouldnt be dsitrubed by boat traffic

Yeah, I am curious to find out if they just wernt biting or if it was bad technique or whatever the case my be. There was 2 day fishing tourney happening at the same time, some other people I have spoke with thought that maybe the water was just kinda churned up from all the boats and people everywhere, but when I looked at that depth finder it was full of fish all day and I mean absolutely packed.

Guys, I need help and I need it quick. I waiting all week for my time to go fishing yesterday at Smithville Lake in Smithville Missouri. I got on the water about 6:30 am and it was a bit chilly outside but I thought it was perfect. Water temp was 74 F and the air temp when the sun came out I think came out to be in 80's. Water color was murky but starting to clear up and I fished anywhere from 4' of water t o40' with fish everywhere in between on my finder. I threw spinners, cranks, jigs, worms and nothing and I MEAN NOTHING would bite !!!! I want to know why and/ or what I was doing wrong. I am a seasoned fisherman, I have fished all my life and I went to this lake last monday and caught two 2 lb bass in 2 hours. So I was feeling pretty good, did a lot of research all week and tried to put that research to use and came up with a big fat goosegg. My fishing buddy was with me and he is the same he is a seasoned fisherman with lots of fish under his belt and he didnt get a single nibble all day as well. Does anyone know if the fish just were not biting or if I was doing something incredibly wrong?!?!? We thought it was a perfect day and all the conditions were perfect so we are just simply baffled. Lake fishing is not our strong suit but I personally want it to become much better on large bodies of water. We fished brush, logs, trees, lillys, any structure we could find and just nothing. SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME AND GIVE ME TIPS FOR LAKE FISHING!!!! Thanks Guys!

Make sure your drag is set properly and if you are catching Northerns make sure you have a steel leeder. For me personally when I went to Canada and fished Northerns, I adjusted my drag throughout the day. So, after a couple of fish I had my drag adjusted so that anything under a pound would not strip my line out even when it was fighting, and then anything over 1 pound would. Also helps you gauge how big a fish you are reeling in if you understand you drag and its settings.

Well yeah that would be the norm, but really I am more curious on how to pull the bass out of those big moss patches under the water. I would think jigging would be the first choice, but I didnt know if in that enviroment certain lures or techniques would work better.

Midwest here also (KC Area). Eager to try out some new buzz baits and a new frog. Never used a frog before but I hear they work great ! Does anyone know how well cranks tend to do this time a year, or if it even makes a difference? I dont use cranks much but I really want to try to get more comfortable with them and use them alot more to reach some deeper depths!

Okay guys, I have a simple but perplexing question for you. There is a statepark in my hometown and the lake there is somewhat small, but not too bad. The lake I am referring to is Watkins Mill Lake in Watkin's Wollen Mill State Park in Excelsior Springs Missouri. I want to know or gain the knowledge of how to fish the submerged weed beds. It seems that the water isnt too deep usually about 10 ft, but around these moss beds is probably closer to about 4'-5'. Now, I know you wouldnt typically fish that shallow of water, but my train of thought is, the submerged moss is great cover, there are bait fish everywhere and for the most part its in the middle of what could be considered coves, so why wouldn't a largemouth be hanging out there ? I typically use a spinner and a chartreuce spinner is what I ws using last time out and I caught my largest bass of the season. The largemouth I caught there last time was just under 5 lbs. (I attached a photo of the 4 lb 12 oz largemouth I caught there last week) I want to land larger fish more consistantly, and I want to know how to fish these moss beds and other cover the lake provides. Any tips? - N.