redboat

Navionics has a new PC maps edition, Navplanner 2, which has topo maps for most lakes. You can check and see if your lake is on it before you buy. I found a lot of underwater structure using a combination of their PC map and my Humminbird side view. Most stuff is right where it's marked on the PC topo map.

I decided to limit myself to two techniques: Crankbaits because I'm still working out the kinks in my crankbait rigs, and jigs because I've not been successful with jigs in the past and would like to learn to fish 'em. I got to the lake around noon; it was about 50 degrees, overcast, light breeze. Water temp about 48 degrees. I bought some Rage Tail craws (couldn't find the chunks). I rigged a 3/8 oz jig with the rage tail: http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g200/pscarbor/010712%20Carpvine/IMAG0190.jpg I was using 10 lb P-Line 100% flouro on a 7 foot MH rod with a wide spool spinning reel for the jig. I threw the cranks with medium action rods, one a Shimano the other a Abu Garcia Veritos, each with 12 lb P-Line flouro. i decided to fish three areas I'd caught bass in Spring and Summer, two downlake, one mid lake. All three had rocks and dropoffs nearby, so I'd fish the deeper water. First question for you jig experts: Is the brush guard needed if not fishing brush or weeds? nothing growing around the rocks I was fishing; it seems like the brush guard would be useless, just get in the way. Anyway, here are some SV shots of the first area: http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g200/pscarbor/010712%20Carpvine/S00140.png Notice the fish around the dark area on the right. I marked that; it was about 45 feet deep. Nothing on the jig. I cruised around the area - there's a rocky point near; I covered that also with the crankbaits (DD22 and Rapala DT10) and jig; nothing. The second area was around the dam. I thought I saw a couple of fish around that but there were several others fishing that area so I decided to move on, back to mid lake. The entrance to a cove I got this on the SV: http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g200/pscarbor/010712%20Carpvine/S00145.png ...the cloudy areas looked like bait fish. I cruised those rocks with the two crankbaits for about an hour, casting parallel to shore into 10 to 20 feet of water, bumping the rocks. Again no takers. I thought about throwing a chrome rattletrap or spinner but I'd decided to work on the jig and cranks so I stuck with those. Then I went back over the area with the jig, fishing it as slowly as i could. I'd let it hit bottom, ouunt off 15 seconds, move it a little bit with the rod, another 15 seconds, etc. After about an hour of that I'd only covered about 100 feet when I got bit, a nice two pounder in abut 15 feet. The bite was VERY subtile, I didn't know I had her until I raised the jig to reposition it. There was no indication of fish in the area either on the side view or regular sonar, although I did see the bait fish on the SV. I really like the Rage Tails; lotta action. I picked up some of the shad in addition to the craws, planning on using them next week when the wife and I go on our annual MLK fishing trip. Nice coffee scent, sure made ME want to eat one. The craw looks like it'd be a super C-Rig bait also. Thanks again to everyone for the tips. I plan to fish jigs more, especially this winter. Pretty miserable being on the water when its cold, makes it tough to be patient. Something I obviously need to work on!

WRB, Cotton Neal, thanks for the tips. Looks like relatively good weather tomorrow (Saturday); I'm going out on a lake about three miles from my house which I usually refer to as "Lake Carpvine" due to the fact that whenever the family gets tired of Lil' Nemo the goldfish and flushes him he winds up here; as a result, the carp population is in the billions. I've caught LMB on Carpvine from time to time, usually on a shaky head/Grande Bass combination in 2 to 5 feet around rocks but cranks and spinners work also. Haven't caught anything on it since early June, though - this is not unusual in NC Texas where a typical day on the lake in Summer can be summed up as "ten thousand boats chasing three fish". I'm gonna try some jigs around a deep area close to where I've caught fish in the past, a dropoff from a rocky area. Goes down from 3 - 4 feet to around 40 feet. Never had any luck with jigs, but a trip to Bass Pro to get some of those Rage Tail chunks might improve things.

I think most baits have a way to fish them that works and if you don't use that particular method or "trick" you won't catch anything. Case in point: I fished crankbaits and spinners for many years and never caught a thing before I figured out the three basic "must know" crankbait tricks; now they're my most dependable baits. Same with spinners, although I don't throw them as often.

It works better this way: The top of the reel is pointed to the left for a right handed caster, so the spool is vertical with the handle up. This was not natural for me, I had to learn it, but for some reason you get fewer backlashes this way. A couple of comments: Right handed reels versus left handed, you will find a better selection of baitcasters with the handle on the right and unlike spinning reels they cannot easily be switched. This was the reason I went with right hand reels. Also, after several hundred backlashes, short casts "thumbing", etc, etc, I bought a BPS Johnny Morris baitcaster (made by Pfluger but much less expensive) which has both centrifugal and magnetic drags. Good instructions in it about how to set both, I won't repeat here; but if it's set correctly I can cast heavy crankbaits and C-rigs a mile without thumbing or backlashes. I also spray the line on the spool with silicone (I use Reel Magic) before the first cast and occasionally afterwards. Of course when it DOES backlash it can be a long process to pick it out; the silicone helps there also. I was used to spooling about 50 yards of line only, since a long cast is usually less than that. A guide told me if I'd fill the reel almost full I'd get fewer backlashes. This didn't make sense (still doesn't) to me but once I tried it I found out he was correct. I don't know why anyone would use a 6:1 baitcaster, seems like a compromise to me. I use 5:1 for cranking, Texas and Carolina rigs, since I have a bad habit of retrieving too fast; and a 7:1 for buzzbaits and frogs. Good luck, hopefully you won't get frustrated when it backlashes and throw the whole thing in the lake!

Any suggestions for finding them in the first place? I have personally never caught a bass in a month that ends in "er" or "ry".

You are correct; the lake record on Ivie is 16 lbs, although it's not really near DFW That lake is 229 miles west, about the same distance as Toledo Bend but the opposite direction. I may give it a try in the Spring, if it rains and the level comes up: it is 40 feet low at present, 18% full, so I doubt if any launches are open. Thanks, I'll see if I can get a copy.

I fish RR a lot, 20 - 30 times a year. I can catch dinks there consistently but a 2 pounder is rare on that lake these days. Fork DOES in fact have large fish but the success rate is very low. I was out there yesterday in fact; buddy and I got skunked. I usually do a half dozen Fork trips in a season, average catching something about 1 in 4 trips which is better than most do. By the way - when I go to other lakes outside the DFW area I do better. The lakes in this area have a lot of fishing pressure, plus the drought isn't helping.

Thanks guys - I appreciate the info. My fishing buddy I.M. HaungUp and I went to Fork yesterday to confirm the locations of some of the culverts and bridges I found on the Navionics lake map. We confirmed three, two were right where the map said they'd be, the third was about 30 feet off. Also saw several schools of fish of some kind - the white spots - in the stumps but as as Wayne noted it was impossible to tell what kind of fish they were and we didn't catch any. Only stayed out from about 1 PM to 3:30, was drizzly and cold. Any suggestions for the different side view frequencies? When do you use one or the other?

Depends what you want to believe in I suppose. Unicorns. Alien abduction. Five pound bass in North Texas lakes.

Yeah, you guys are making me jealous. I fish lakes in DFW Texas mostly; I consider a 2 pounder huge. On that scale I catch one huge fish a month on average. And that is during the months you can actually CATCH a fish around here - March through June and late September/early October. The rest of the year I'm convinced the bass migrate to Canada or Mexico.

Made by Pflueger. I have two of these, they are really nice reels. I especially like the centrifugal plus mag plus static drags; when I get 'em all set the reels seldom backlash, even using 100% flouro.

Tried that a couple times; we lost 'em when it got dark.

Now for the "learning" part. Hopefully some of you guys who've been using side view can comment on these. I'm pretty certain the while spots on the left are fish, especially since my buddy and I caught several small bass on Senkos in that area. Not as certain about this. I suspect the cloudy areas are bait fish, but I didn't see any (visibility was only about 2 feet at the time). I'm still playing with the different frequencies, 455 KHz and 800 KHz. The submerged bridges in my first post showed up better with the lower frequency for some reason. I think the lower frequency works better in shallow water, especially further from the boat. The higher frequency shows more detail over submerged stumps in 10 feet of water or more. Again, any comments on these would be appreciated.

You are correct - I could have explained that a little more clearly.

I fished a few local tourneys over the last several years but not any more. We have a lot of "working man's" tournaments in this area, late afternoon takeoff, night weigh in. My buddy and I fished one regularly, every Wednesday. Not too expensive, $30 a boat which included $5 for big bass. After a few weeks I noticed this typical pattern: 15 boats entered; 11 weigh zero; two weigh one fish (about 2 lbs); one weigh two fish (about 4 lbs); one boat weighs 5 fish, total 15 lbs, big bass around 8 lbs. And the same two guys won it every week. So I was convinced they must be cheating, had a bunch of bass in a dog cage sunk somewhere. Not so - a Lake Fork guide straightened me out. He told me guys would buy those artificial plastic brush piles at Bass Pro and sink them around the lake. Using GPS they could get right back on them. He said they'd typically sink 15 or 20 of these. Only 4 or 5 would actually hold fish. In the tournament they'd go back to the brush piles that held fish and reel 'em in. "You can sometimes beat those brush pile boys," he told me, "but not very often. They're gonna win most of the time." Nice little business those guys had going. That particular lake had three of those working man's tournaments every week; average 15 boats in each, $30 per boat, that's $450 in the pot each tourney. First place was usually around $300, sometimes "winner take all"; and they always took big bass too. Since I was just contributing money with no chance of winning any of it back I stoped fishing those tournaments.

Tournament manners, yeah... Couple years ago my buddy and I fished a "working man's tournament" on one of the local lakes every Wednesday. The takeoff was at 6 Pm, weigh in at 10. So the last time we fished it there were about 15 boats lined up. The director blew an air horn; half of us took off down lake, the other half up lake. I was in the down lake group, about a half dozen of us running wide open. Buddy and I got the best hole shot, we were in the lead. A boat on the left was slowly gaining on us - we were running about 65 mph at the time; he must have been doing like, 66. A guy on the right was also gaining, he was about 50 feet to the right. He gradually pulled even with us - then suddenly cut right in front, and by 'right in front' I mean about four feet in front. Scared the c**p outta me, his prop wash was blowing right in my face, all over my boat. I was scared to just cut power, afraid somebody was behind me and I'd get run over. I slowed down a little and let him pull away, then when I could see we were clear I cut power. My buddy was just back from Iraq; when we got stopped he said, "Gee, and I thought Baghdad was dangerous!"

After several years of "beating the banks" I've decided that in order to progress as a bass angler I'm gonna have to learn to fish structure. I read the excellent series "So you want to learn to fish Toledo Bend, picked up some excellent tips from Catt and the guys posting on that thread. I went out with a guide on lake Fork summer before last - when it still had water in it. He explained about using crankbaits, C-rigs, and Texas rigs to fish submerged bridges. I learned a lot; mainly that my retrieve was way too fast. Next step was learning to find structure. Last year I bought a Humminbird side view sonar unit. I also upgraded to the latest Navionics PC mapping software; I have the 2008 Navionics chip in the 'bird. I've been using the combination of detailed lake maps and side view sonar to locate some of the underwater structure on Fork. What I do is, mark the various bridges on the Navionics PC software, upload to a MMC chip, then put this in the Humminbird. The points I mark transfer to the GPS map. Then I go out on the lake and use the side view to find the precise location of the bridges and culverts. The Humminbird has a function that allows you to capture the screen and download to the MMC card as images. Here are some side view pics I took in October on Fork. Maybe this will help anyone who's thinking of buying a side view unit. In my opinion this thing is light years beyond traditional sonar. I'm still learning how to use the side view but so far results are good. Bridge over a creek, on the right about 40 feet Another creek bridge, collapsed pilings on the left This bridge was a little easier to find with the lake down seven feet.

My ex wife's grandpa was 93 when he passed, was married for 70 years to the same woman. Just before he died he told me they'd never had an argument in all that time. When I asked him to explain his secret, he told me about the day they got married. He had a wagon and mule; they rode to his farm in that after the ceremony. Suddenly the mule stopped. He got out, walked around, looked the mule in the eye, and said, "That's one." The mule started back up but stopped again in a few minutes. He got off, walked around, looked him in the eye and said, "That's two." Well, sure enough, it wasn't long before the mule stopped again. Grandpa got out, pulled out his shotgun, and shot the mule in the head. He fell over dead. His new wife said, "Hey, you shouldn't have done that!" He looked at her and said, "That's one."

I'm learning more about knots, trying to get better. I've used Palomar knot pretty much exclusively for the last few years but have been experimenting with some others, especially Rapala knot for Pop-Rs. I may try that one for crankbaits, see how it works. I always wet the line, and try to only pull the tag end for the Palomar. Any tips you or anyone else can give would be much appreciated. P-Line is awesome. I gave my fishing buddy I.M HaungUp all the other line I'd accumulated. I get a kick put of listening to him cuss when he gets a backlash or breaks off a brand new crankbait.

Seems to have better knot strength. Or maybe I just don't know how to tie knots - whatever. I use 100% flouro on the spinning rigs and 12 lb 100% flouro on two of my baitcasters; CXX on the other two. The flouro works well on the baitcasters, makes a good crankbait rig, doesn't seem to backlash as often as some other flouros I've tried. Truthfully, I was almost as excited as she was to catch that huge bass. It hung halfway out of the net when I finally got it netted. I usually outfish the wife in numbers and weight, especially since for the last three years she'll only fish wacky rigged Senkos. When those don't work she doesn't catch anything but I can't blame her for staying with them. If she starts catching 'em on her Senkos I switch to them also. I even occasionally drag the Senko across the surface. I love my wife - only female I know who can actually back a boat trailer down the ramp.

So, couple years ago I was scheduled to fish in a end of Jan tourney on a power plant lake, water is 90 degrees on the discharge side and cools off as you go around it. I convinced the wife to go with me to prefish. We spend three days seeing all kinds of bass (the water was chrystal clear) but not even a nibble. I'd thrown everything in the tackle box. So it was 3 Pm the last day, was about to bag it. She was bored, was throwing a wacky rigged Senko on 6 lb P-Line flouro on her little spinning rig. Instead of letting it settle to the bottom then twitch it she was jsut throwing it out, reeling it back in. Dang thing was running on the surface. I was pretty frustrated; this was about the last straw! I yelled at her, "Cut it out already; you KNOW you won't catch anything fishing like that!!!" That was when the bass hit. She yelled, "ohmyGodIgottafish!!". Fortunately (we were in heavy hydrilla) the bass swam parallel to the boat, heading for open water no doubt. She was able to get her next to the boat; I reached down, spooked the fish which took off under the boat. Wife's reel was howling as the drag ran out. She cranked the bass back under the boat; this time i tried a net - same thing. Happened three more times before I was able to net the bass, bigest dang fish I ever saw; her eyes must have been big as half dollars. We weighed it: 10 lb, 6 oz. Caught on 6 lb P-Line. Took a couple pics with the cell phone and released her. One of the pics is now my wife's Facebook picture. Lessons I learned: (1) I've used nothing but PLine since. I still string the wife's spinning rigs with 6 lb. I use heavier line, 10 lb on spinners, 12 or 15 on baitcasters; (2) When I see something I just KNOW isn't gonna work I keep my mouth shut; (3) Now the wife wants to go fishing every Martin Luther king day on that same lake, which is fine with me; (4) Three inch wacky rigged Senkos may be a "girl bait" but you can dang sure catch a big fish on 'em!

I've been married for ten years, by the way. My wife isn't the best housekeeper in the world; since she works full time I figure I can either shut up about that or do it myself. So i shut up. The other day she was off work. She'd worked all day cleaning the house. When i got home around 6 she was exhausted, asleep on the couch. I looked around, houose looked pretty good. "Joy," I yelled at her, "get up! Somebody broke into the house!" She jumped up, "Huuuhh?" "...they stole all the dirty clothes off the floor!"

Guys, you're missing the point - as is Ms. Phd to be... Wives NEED something to gripe about on a regular basis. As girlfriends they can repress this for a while but sooner or later it's gonna come out. If you deprive her of this necessary release of pent up female angst YOU are being cruel and needlessly hurtful. Now none of us wants to do that! So, if she wants to carry on about you spending $700 (or $70,000) on fishing (which she really doesn't care about by the way) by all means ALLOW HER TO DO THIS! Just nod absently while she gripes away at you; after a half hour or so, look over at her and say as seriously as you can, "Huh? Did you say something?" For non fishermen reading this forum (I have no idea why you'd want to do this but ok), throwing your clothes all over the floor works almost as well. Hope this helps! I have other marriage advice, like what I told my neighbor when his wife of 25 years suddenly insisted they go to a marriage counselor. He didn't know what to do, poor guy! I took him to a local gun and knife show, had him buy a 12 inch Bowie knife and a whetstone. I told him to sit there and not say anything, just sharpen the knife on the whetstone - and if he heard something he didn't like, stop. One trip, no more marriage counseling!

T-Bend is one of my favorite lakes, the wife and I try to get down there a couple of times a year at least. Second favorite is Rayburn. We haven't been to either in a year and a half; last time out at Rayburn we barely got launched and that was when it was several feet higher than it is now. This dang drought is a bummer! I wish you East Texas guys the best, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We've had some rain the last few weeks in the North Texas area, hope some of it makes it down your way.