BASSHUNTING

Hello, I'm curious if anyone is looking for a fishing partner. I have a Nitro Z8 and I fish Smith Mountain Lake the most. Currently, I fish about 3 days a week. I live about 10 minutes from the state park. I'm looking for someone that is interested in fishing the lake and others in the surrounding area with me. I fish a few small tournaments right now but would be interested in fishing more if i had someone to split costs with me. I have a little over 2 years of experience on the water. If you intersted, let me know.

Thanks for the heads up. I'm not sure how to contact a MOD so hopefully one will see this and move it where it needs to be. Thanks again.

Sorry , i see that you were fishing rip-rap banks. Never mind.

I wanted to start a thread to focus primarily on "Deep" fishing with emphasis on Smith Mountain Lake. I watched 18lbs with a 5.92 Big Fish win the FOM tournament at SML on Saturday this past weekend and heard a lot about deep structure being the winning factor. The tournament had about 35 to 40 teams. Only 2 teams did not weigh a single fish. There was the winning 18lb sack, 1x 15lb sack, a 12lb sack and some various 10lb sacks. Other than that there were various teams that weighed a couple of 1,2 and 3 fish sacks. I think i counted somewhere around 82 fish or so total. I talked with a few people and they said they were catching fish all throughout the day. Water temperature was between 79 and 82 degrees. This tells me that the fish can be caught on this lake or any other lake for that matter in these conditions. My question is more about how to fish deep water structure/change, and how to use your electronics to find that structure. Whether it is docks, points or brush piles, what is really considered deep here? I have one friends that says all he fishes is deep water docks after the sun has moved high and the fish pull in to them for shade/cover. I have another friend that says he fishes humps and points with some kind of structure on them in the evening when they decide to feed. It's obvious that fish will obviously come to both locations, but how to fish them is also my concern. With the fish in our area currently either still in their summer patterns or beginning to transition with the shad to some of the feeder creeks and more shallower areas and then winter right around the corner , I want to focus on fishing "deep". Here are a few questions to kick off the thread: 1. How deep is deep? a.) I understand that that it's relative to area and the specific body of water. Obviously the fish in a 13' pond can't dig out the bottom of the lake to get to 50' like that of some of the areas in SML. 2. Once you find a stump or brushpile with your electronics, how do you know that once you transition to your downimaging or regular sonar on the front of the boat that you are over it ? 3. Once you are over it, how do you get your dropshot/jig/spoon/??? down to that brush pile? 4. Points seem to really have me confused. I know how to identify a point, but some run out shallower for longer than others and some have deeper water on the sides than others etc... and so on. How do you fish a point? Where do you position your boat? If your throwing a Carolina Rig do you fish it from shallow to deep, deep to shallow, parrallel to point, perpendicular to point? a.) I'd like to be able to develop a plan to systematically pick apart a point and/or it's structure and then know when to move on to another point. 5. If you scan a point/dock/brush pile with your electronics and you do not see evidence of bait fish or fish in general, do you try to fish it anyways or do you move on until you see fish holding to the structure? I don't want to just go out on the water and put fish in my boat because I could repeat what i saw someone do last week in a tournament. I want to understand why my lure enticed a strike based upon conditions of that current time. I know that this is for sure something that takes years and years of practice and all I can say is that I hope so because I plan on doing this for years and years to come. I hope that I haven't pushed this forum past the point of it's intent as I just wanted to start an imformative thread that may help any and all that happen upon it. Thanks in advanced for the replies.

I was out there yesterday from about 9 am to about 4 pm. Caught 1, ~3lb on a dock that was 2 back from the main water point. Dock was in about 15 of water at it's end. What were you doing to catch them prior to 9:30?

I travel down 29 to go to DC a few times a month and i've been passing this new store for a while. Needless to say my wife is "SUPER" excited that there will be a Gander in my path!! I don't buy alot from gander but it's a great way to get your eyes and hands on actual gear if you dont have another outlet of similar nature close by.

I like that response. I've been getting familiar with this site for a while now, and want to say that "Home" is definately a well fitted phrase. It's very encouraging to come to such a site that feels like a membership into something productive rather than a site solely developed for a product sponsor outlet. I am already gearing up toward taking the next road trip. Thanks again.

Thank you very much. I traded up to a Nitro Z8 with a 200. It already had the blacklight Kit in the rubrail as well , so it's not hard to pick me out on the lake at night!

This is great. I would have to say that i'm right where you are now. I have some hopes and dreams and what appears to be a growing addiction to fishing for BASS. This weekend i was able to go out on the lake with a local club president and fish for about 8 hours. While only 1 fish was put in the boat we spent alot of time talking about tactics, lure presentation, time of day, time of year, docks, points, brush piles etc... I was able to see some really good spots on our local lake that i think should help me in the upcoming months. I have participated in a few week night tournaments and have found that for me (personally) they seem to be a waste of my time at this moment. Unfortunately, since the one particular weekly tournament i participated in was a team tournament, I did not have a team mate and was alone on my boat. I wasn't able to really glean any information about conditions , lures or locations from the other teams and thus i just ended up fishing by myself for 4 hours and donating $30 to the winner that particular evening. While i think every moment my line is wet is experience, i could have gained that experience without spending the $30. I have since changed my tactics a bit. I have joined a local bass club, but next meeting isn't till October. Until then, i have been "pretending" like I'm in some of the tournaments that are spent here on my local lake. I put my boat in the water and idle around outside of the marina where the tournament is launching from. I stand by and listen to the rules as they are delivered to the other anglers and then i ask some of the meandering anglers what their tactics for the day are etc.. and so on. Most of them give me funny looks until i tell them , "oh i'm not in the tournament. I'm just pretending to be." Once most of them see that i'm just practicing and learning , and that i'm not threatening their possible pot of money at the end of the day, they're usually willing to give up a little bit of info. Most of the time however I hear the same generalistic phrases: "points, deep structure, docks, texas rig, carolina rig..." I usually have developed my plan the night before and I try to stick to it each time regardless of getting bites or not. I'm trying to figure out if Texas rigging around deep water docks and major points is going to work, when will it work, where will it work and how will it work. I know that it must be a good tactic, even though after about 7 times out in the past 3 weeks i've been skunked each time. I just go back to my log each evening, make notes of where i saw fish on my electronics how i tried to fish for them and what i learned for the day. I know eventually they will start biting what i have to offer. Anyways, I say all of that to say this. If you would like , we can compare notes and share with eachother what we've learned throughout the days, weeks, months that go by. The way i figure , the faster one can obtain "accurate" information, the quicker the learning curve can be conquered. Knowledge is powerful, but understanding and applying the knowledge you obtain is the most powerful of all. If you or anyone else here is in a similar learning phase and would like to compare notes and help each other learn, please let me know. Thanks, Justin

Hello everyone. I've been reading everything I can find on this site for the last 2 weeks and figured that as good of a resource as it is, I had better join and try to start giving back. I'm 30 and have been fishing for the last 2 years (the last 6 weeks very avidly). About two years ago I purchased a 17' nitro some various rods and lures and start fishing 5 nights a week and usually twice on the weekends. It went on like this for about 6 months. As life does to us the fishing time became less due to work or other nuances. Then the boat sat till 3 weeks ago when I traded up. All that being said i have landed a total of 5 fish (i remember every one by the lure and conditions) in the boat and still look forward to every time I can get on the water regardless. I have been consumed by the information on this site and probably spend about 6 hours or so throughout the day on here reading. I look forward to getting to know everyone on the site and building some good friendships. Thanks in advanced for answering my trivial questions and allowing me to participate in what seems to be a very good community of avid and resourceful fishermen/women.