DRH2O

No apologies needed! Your success in no way diminishes my own personal sense of satisfaction On my second trip to the above-mentioned spot I'll hit it precisely without nearly as much overhead. I also wasn't implying that I don't use technology as my primary resource to locate the spots on the spots, only that sometimes I find trolling the best method to fish that spot, and when done with that purpose in mind, trolling can be every bit as fun as casting. For me anyway. ~DR

Without trying to totally derail this thread I'd like to just add a couple of things that I see as misinformation posted above. There's a LOT of talk about water color in the Spoonplugging literature. Many stories about how Buck would drive all around some giant lake or impoundment looking for the area with the best water color to help narrow down where he would start. He cataloged and rated different water colors and visibility. He also wrote at length about traveling around much of the country and fishing as many different types of lakes as possible, from the highland glacial lakes up north to the flatland reservoirs of the south. Giant impounded reservoirs, cleared trees, standing trees, deltas, he fished them all and he discussed them each specifically in his many writings. He said repeatedly that he was speaking to principles that applied to ALL fisheries, he just liked to use big reservoirs as examples because they had the largest variety of structure types for demonstration purposes. With regards to trolling and the OPs question T9 pointed out the two key points to consider. You give up speed control at faster speeds and only something with a hook on it is actually going tell you if there are fish in the mood to strike down there. What you have to keep in mind when it comes to the spoonplugging system is that Buck was very rarely out fishing for stragglers; a fish here and there. He was constantly on the hunt for an active school and his system was designed to methodically eliminate low percentage water and then strain the high percentage areas, checking all speeds and each depth until one arrived at the fish. Trolling as needed simply makes this process more thorough and gets it done more efficiently and quickly. Modern technology can obviously help in this area. Trolling is part of my approach but I fish out of a kayak so I'm fully aware that I'm limiting my speed control. I can troll at a pretty good clip but I can't sustain it going over a deep hump over and over for an hour. I might just add, since I'm already all over the place here, and apparently feel like rambling - Trolling, when you're just out searching or 'mapping' an area can be boring I agree. HOWEVER, if I know there's a rock pile, or a stump or something there on a ledge in 15 FOW, and I determine that letting out X amount of line and paddling at X speed directly towards that tree with the water tower lined up behind it, will keep my lure running about 1' above the bottom until it hits that bit of cover; and I do it, and I feel my lure running free, and as expected I get to a certain point and I feel my lure hit that obstacle, and then I immediately get bit and pull a fish off it - that is IMMENSELY SATISFYING. The trolling experience is completely transformed at that point. I'm no longer just dragging a lure behind me. I'm simply using my boat to get my lure into a precise location in a precise manner that I wouldn't be able to accomplish by casting alone. Accomplish that one time and I promise you that you'll never look at trolling the same way again.

<<Scoffs!>> No self-respecting kayak angler would buy something outright when they could tinker around in the garage and make it on their own! I'm just kidding. That IS a pretty good deal. Honestly though, if I need some special bit of kayak accessory goodness, before I just buy something I'll frequently see if I can build it myself. Sometimes I still end up buying something after-market, but I still get the satisfaction of knowing I was able to develop a solution on my own. Other times, what I make on my own turns out to suit my specific needs so perfectly, I decide that I can't better it with anything I can find pre-manufactured. LOVE the feeling I get when that happens! If you're going to go to the trouble to build one though, it's probably worth going to the trouble to pull your yak out and measure it. "Measure twice; cut once" ~Denny

Ok that image left me feeling really, very... seriously conflicted...

I found a good looking pond nearby on Google maps. I made the drive to the owners house and braved an angry Great Dane that clearly wanted to eat me where I met a nice lady named Annie, who told me it would be ok for my son and I to fish her pond, and that I could take the entrance off the gravel road and just drive through the field to the dam. This was in May. Fast forward to August. I swing by after work on a whim one afternoon and I'm not there 15 min and I'm in to a solid fish. There's a guy on the other side of the pond driving a quad out in the field. I land this fish and it's a nice 5lber. As I hold it up to admire my catch the guy on the quad starts heading over. He's obviously coming over to get a better look at this fine specimin I caught and give me the country "attaboy." "Howdy!" I holler out as he pulls up and I work to get the hook out so I can hold it up again to show him. "You know this is private property right?" "What? Oh, yeah. I talked to Annie. I have permission." "Well Annie doesn't own this land anymore. I do. And I'm not letting anyone fish this pond." At which point he pretty much sat there waiting for me to put his fish back and get off his land. I stared at him for a second or two and looked back at the fish I was holding but I got the feeling that I'd really be pushing my luck to ask him to take a snapshot of me before I let it go... The biggest fish I managed to pull out of that pond and I DIDN'T EVEN GET A PICTURE OF IT! LOL

Your point is well taken. There really aren't any fisheries around me that have trout for the majority of the season so I never really found myself having the need for a $25 realistic trout replica lure.As a result that slug-go was simply the best i had to work with. I do plan on coming better prepared this fall. I did a little doctoring though and I had that slug-go looking pretty trouty by the time I was done... as long as you sort of squinted and didn't look right at it.

I live about 10 min away from a fishery that gets stocked with trout every fall. It's highly pressured from the shore but it's very weedy and doesn't really get an overabundance of boat traffic at all. There are some real behemoths that get pulled out every so often but the the fish there are generally spooky and agoraphobic and fishing there can be an unrewarding chore even on a good day. This place is as likely as any to hold the next state record though, and my guess is that the biggest fish are conditioned to turn on when that trout truck pulls in and starts doing it's thing. Accordingly, this last fall I took trout stocking day off from work and went out early, positioning my kayak so I could cast to a small shelf between the drop off and the weedline. I sat there and waited for 2 hrs as the trout circus started. People showed up in droves - standing shoulder to shoulder all along the shore, the dock and the ramp. I must have been quite a sight that day, hovering just beyond the reach of most of the shore anglers and throwing a big 9" trout colored slug-go at the same spot they were throwing all their tiny little spinners and spoons. It was a rough day to be on the water in the Yak, temps were in the low 40s and wind gusts were around 30mph. In the end I had nothing to show for my effort that day but I still think that it's a valid premise. Difficult, though, to try and establish any pattern when you only get one chance per year.

I watched all four of those. There was some interesting information there buried in between the stories about what a fantastic angler Bill Siemantel is and the admonishments to open my mind... Actually the bits about the shadow lines positioning fish was very tantalizing and I'd be interested in hearing or reading more regarding this. I might possibly have had my mind blown just a tiny bit too with that bit about using the shadow of a lure to re-position a fish into a catchable position on a subsequent cast. I've seen his Big Bass Zone book before and considered purchasing it but the reviews always seem to talk me out of it. It sounds like it's a whole lotta menu and not so much meat and potatoes. I see they have an ebook version now that much more reasonably priced at $25. Maybe I'll spring for it and see if I can pan some nuggets out of it. Thanks for posting that. ~Denny

It seems reasonable to me to assume that these 'soft breaks' factor in to the positioning of the fish around the 'harder' breaks. I don't think I would be sold on the idea that a shadow edge alone would bring fish across a large flat though. This is really an area where I have plenty of room for improvement. I can factor in the depth of a thermocline ok and fish that depth on real structure, or I might find a windblown shorelines where the water has churned up mud close to shore and I'll fish the outside of it like I would a weedline if that shoreline already seemed promising. Shadows really do throw me though; trying to estimate how they might be moving or exactly where the 'line' might be under water drives me crazy. Even more so at night when I'm trying to find shadows thrown by the moon. I'm TERRIBLE at that. Either way though I'm always going to treat these 'soft breaks' only as enhancement or secondary to the structure of the bottom itself and the cover objects on that structure. I just doubt that a transient breakline is ever going to be chosen over a more permanent one when it comes to movement routes. Unless possibly the fish have been conditioned to it by recurrence. If a wash off a hill spills discolored water into an area every time it rains, and it brings and attracts forage, then I can see fish getting conditioned to move up a regular route then move off and follow the line of discolored water to the food whenever they see it. ~Denny

I was wondering if someone was going to bring up Up vs. Down... That alone is going to pretty much require one approach or the other. For me personally, determining factors like, how well I know the structure, whether I want to fish Up or Down, water clarity, wind, etc. are going to play a big role in how I approach it. I might come at it from the main basin, pulling a jig or something off the breaklines to let them drop. I might creep in the shallow right next to the shore from the side and cast out to swim something up to bump those lips or ledges. I might troll right over the top of a breakline, either parallel or perpendicular to it. I might even be cruising along dropping markers to sort out where I'm going to focus once I'm done mapping. The fact that I fish out of a kayak most of the time also skews my approach because I have a serious stealth advantage (IMO). I might approach the same spot differently from a full size boat. Still, the point I'm making is that one size does not fit all. This might confuse the newbie to structure fishing though, who is just trying to grasp and iron out a systematic approach to figuring it out and is again being given too many options without the experience to judge which situation calls for what. Someone new to the game might be better served by worrying less about whether starting in the shallows or in deep water is "right" and just focusing on making sure that they're fishing this piece of structure in a methodical manner that allows them to identify and isolate the "spots on the spot." ~Denny

This is the same technique I use when I deploy dual anchors. I fish out of a kayak and I'm frequently anchored or clipped off to a bush or a tree or something. If I believe I'm on prime structure and working a break-line or a piece of cover I'll anchor up and fish it methodically. Being in a kayak I also have my anchor(s) rigged so that I can break free from them in a heartbeat if I hook up with something sizeable. If I'm not anchored I'm probably in some form of search mode.

T9 makes an excellent point. You can choose to accept or dismiss Perry's assumptions about how and where the fish live and move. But the beauty of his system, as far as it's actual implementation is concerned, lies in the methodical manner in which the highest percentage spots are found and fished. Behind all of it's diagrams and scenarios that emphasize interpretation, at it's heart, It's really a technical system that focuses on the how-to. It can be easy to start over thinking all the data when you're out on the water; Clines, forage, fish suspension, water and weather conditions, etc. All of these things factor in to the whole to be sure. But if you start by just focusing on identifying the prime structures, and finding and fishing all of the breaks on them between shallow and deep, and do it in a systematic way, you'll be way ahead of the game. All the other stuff is fine tuning which you should only expect to dial-in over repeated visits to the location or with time on the water in general. The Spoonplugging system in general, encourages you to stop trying to over-analyze and out-think the fish when you're on the water and just follow the "guidelines" that will, in time, lead you to the right spots and to the fish. Doing so develops your skills, your confidence, and your intuition. Whether you choose to adhere to it in the strictest sense like some of the puritans or to adapt it's guidelines to suit your style or inclinations is up to you in the end. Without a system of some sort though, to lead you to, and put you on the high percentage spots, you'll most likely end up constantly second-guessing yourself and wandering around. You'd probably be better off just following the shoreline and throwing your lures at all the same visible cover everyone else does. ~Denny

I try to take a Zen approach to my yak angling; meaning I make an attempt to work with whatever the weather is throwing me if at all possible. There are a lot of variables to consider in your question but as a couple of examples... Let's say I have a weedline on a point that I want to fish. With a slight breeze I'll probably just make repeated drifts past it without the use of anything at all to slow me down. If the wind picks up a bit, I may paddle up to the downwind side, cast to the upwind side and let the wind push me away from the area allowing my lure to move across the point until my lure is off the point where my yak was positioned to begin with. Rinse and repeat. Essentially letting the wind push my yak and troll my lure across the area I'm working. If the wind really picks up then I might just clip my clamp to the end of my anchor line and tie up tight to shore in key spots that let me work my lures parallel to the weedline running towards the point. I'll usually only deploy my anchor if I'm confident that I've identified a contact point on the structure I'm working over. If I really want to commit to a spot and work it and the wind picks up I'll dual anchor so I hold my position without spinning around. My anchor system is pretty simple and easily deployed. Paracord on a little winder with a float and a swiveled snap hook on the end. My default anchor is a solid 3lb dumbell with a steel ring zip-tied to it to clip on to. I also have the aforementioned clamp with a ring on it as well. I have a drift sock as well but honestly I rarely use it. ~Denny

100 bonus points for using the term "rad" in a fishing forum.

Heating up the PVC and making those ends flare like that is flipping brilliant! Nice work.

Flipin that's a stylin' crate setup you have there! I use a molle pouch system for mine as well. I recently swapped out on of the pouches with a mountainbike handlebar pouch. It's got a much better shape to it and is better suited for holding line spools but it only came in black and it keeps giving me fits every time I look at it because it doesn't match the camo of the other pouches. Gotta be something very wrong with me... LOL

I have an Ascend A10 that has been fully customized and I LOVE it! I tell people all the time, I don't care how long you've been fishing. Catching a 5+ lb fish out of a kayak will change your life. Among the many customizations I've undertaken and made for it is a completely portable system for my Lowrance Fish Finder. I've posted it up elsewhere but I'll share it below. -------------------------- When I was trying to decide how to rig my fish finder the two things that were priorities were 1.)quick set up and 2.)ease of transport. I considered permanently mounting the transducer in the hull, but then that meant all of that cord was going to have to be maintained somehow during transport. I wasn't really crazy about that idea. I also considered an external arm for the transducer but then I was looking at rigging and running cable everytime I got on the water. Plus I fish a couple of lakes with a ton of milfoil and salad and having that arm down in the water didn't seem like the best solution for me. I finally ended up with a solution that simply sits up front between my feet under the dash and shoots through the hull. It's completely self-contained and portable and sets up in seconds. First I took a plastic CD storage container and nested it inside a shoe-box sized plastic container. The battery and sonar display both fit in the small container. The cable and the display base fit in the room that's left in the shoe-box. Basically I just experimented with containers until I found I found something that gave me just enough space to hold everything nice and tidy inside. Closed up for transport Lid open - everything stowed What's inside I drilled a hole in the end of the shoe-box container and ran the transducer/power cord through it, leaving the transducer on the outside and nestling the rest of the cord in the gap. I mounted the transducer right to the end of the plastic box. I have the mount tightened up just enough to hold it in position but so that I can slide it up so it's above the bottom for transporting or down so it sits where it needs to below the box when in use. Up for transport In-use position Then I marked off where the holes on the base are and put some little machine screws in the top of the battery box lid that stick up just a bit. These act as pegs and I can just set the display base right on them and it all sits solid. I decided that I wanted another option so I also put a couple of machine screws coming out of the front of the shoe-box. I can slide the top of the base under the upper lip on the box and fit the bottom on these pegs and it all sits snug once again. This lets the display ride lower. I like this configuration better if I'm doing much trolling. High position on top Low position in front Finally I just took some duct seal and made a little well in the hull for the transducer to sit in. Well Transducer in the well All set up The whole thing stores in my travel tote with the rest of my gear. When I'm putting in I just open the shoe-box, mount and plug in the display, set it in place in my yak then pour enough water in the well so that the transducer it touching it. It shoots right through the hull no problem. I'm really really happy with how simple this was to make and how convenient it is to use. I was able to scrounge up everything I needed to make this from my garage except for the duct seal. Seal, screws and containers might come to $10 total cost in parts. I hope sharing this might give you some ideas that you can use on your own rig! ~Denny

Seasonal and daily weather considerations aside, I typically start my chart surveys at the deep water then look for the best looking spawning area/feeding shelf that relates to it. Working strictly off the map, I'm looking for structures (contour situations) that connect the best looking shallows to the deepest water available in the area, making a special note of the place most likely to have the sharpest break to the deep water (contact point). A case could be made that whether I start by looking at the deep water or the shallows is irrelevant, because what I'm really after is a structure that completely connects the two (the route). Once I actually get on the water to fish, however, I always start in the shallows. Shallow fish are more often easier to catch than deep fish, and if I'm checking out some promising structures for active fish, I'll generally find them more quickly in the shallows. After I find some active fish up shallow, though, usually the first thing I'll do is move out to the "first" break-line out from the shallows and start working my way towards the drop off (contact point) looking for the bigger fish. ~Denny

One of the things I've committed to being much better about this year is keeping good logs. I've found from experience that the more I have to write out in a log, the less likely it is that I get it done. (Which is surprising, I know, based on how long my posts can get...) I've tried a few different online logs but frankly I haven't found one that really felt right for me. So, being the techie that I am, I decided to just write up my own web page front end so I can enter data via check-boxes and drop-down lists. I started off by more or less using the BassResource log as a template and figured I'd just write some code to export it as a savable document once all the data was entered. The more I got to thinking about it, though, the more I started thinking how nice it would be to export the data in a spreadsheet-friendly format so I could sort and organize the accumulated data and watch for trends. Herein lies my predicament and the reason why I'm looking for input from all you log-keepers out there. Finding the right balance between ease-of-entry vs. usefulness downstream. To really be able to mine the data down the road it seems like EACH fish entry should be it's own record with it's own associated values: structure type, water temp, wind, etc. If I just say that I went out for 5 hrs and caught 10 fish from points, weeds and laydowns on a windy, cloudy day, then I don't really get the specifics related to each fish so I can compare things later on. If I have to re-enter a bunch of the same data for each fish caught though it seems like I might be turning it into more of a hassle than it should be. I'm sure that each person here who successfully keeps logs has their own way that works best for them - so I'd like to hear them. How do you keep logs and what works for you? How detailed do you make them and how useful are they to pour back over later on? Does anyone actually use spreadsheets or databases to graph or chart data?

6:00 am Get up 6:10 am Peek out window 6:11 am Curse Mother Nature, give the finger 7:20 am Watch local news weather forecast 7:21 am Curse local weatherman 7:22 am Heavy sigh, begin sulking 7:30 - 8:00 am Morning commute. Curse Mother Nature. 8:00 am Arrive at work 8:00 am - 12:00 pm Work, in between trying to read fishing articles, books 12:00 - 1:00 pm Work out, fantasize about fishing in warm weather 1:00 pm Back at desk, check weather webpage, Sulk again 1:01 - 4:30 pm Work, in between reviewing topo maps of this year's target locations 4:30 - 5:00 pm Evening commute, curse Mother Nature, give finger again 6:15 pm watch local news weather forecast, cuss weatherman, log in to Facebook and vent publicly to him about his forecast 7:30 pm Express disbelief about this winter 9:30 - 10:00 Settle in to bed with Buck Perry 10:01 - Pray that tomorrow will offer a glimpse of hope that spring is coming Repeat

If you take nothing else away from this thread, sear this little nugget into your brain.

Crawfish molt as they grow, frequently the first year (6-12 times) and less frequently the older they get depending on environment and species, so there are likely always going to be some craws in a body of water that are molting at any given time - more smaller, and fewer or none, larger. Molting craws vary in color from bright blue to bright red depending on the species, but are typically brighter in color during the molt. During the winter when water temps are <45 degrees most crawfish are burrowed deep in the mud. Once the water temps approach 50 degrees they become active and begin the first major breeding period. During this time the males crawl openly on rocks and such trying to attract females. They are highly vulnerable at this time. After the 2-3 week breeding period is over the females burrow in the mud to fertilize the eggs, BUT (and I think this is what you're looking for) the males ALL go through a molt at this point where they lose their sex organs, which have calcified. So you have some random molting all season, but you have a massive group molt right after the spring mating frenzy and another one again in the fall. There are so many varieties of crawfish that I'm sure there are exceptions but I believe this general pattern applies to most of them. ~DR

I'm pulling the anchor trolly off the yak and rigging it up with a dual anchor system. I'm hoping to make a couple of DIY drift socks and I'm most definately going to rig up a dash mount and internally shoot-through-the-hull mount the transducer for the new depth finder that I bought SANTA got me...

Last season was my first year fishing from a kayak so just learning the ins and outs of that was one of the biggies. The most challenging was learning to flip and pitch from such a low seated position. I ended up using a kind of modified roll cast but by the fall I was pretty accurate with it. I also figured out what did and didn't work with my yak setup so I have some winter projects to get it all refined for next season. On the fish side I set a goal of 7lbs. I've managed to bring in a handful of fish the last few seasons that all hover within a couple ounces + or - of 5lbs. Good fish to be sure but I figured I'd set my sights on bumping it up a healthy notch. On the upside I managed to catch one that was easily in the 7-8 lb range. On the down-side I managed to lose her in a moment of epic stupidity while trying to lip her up next to my yak. Next year I'm just hoping for a chance to recover the little peice of my soul that died that day ~DR

I set a handful of smaller goals and one or two big ones each season. I know I won't acheive them all but I enjoy the challenge and sense of achievement that comes with realizing specific goals. The only things I really expect out of myself on any given trip though is to learn something, even if it's just continuing to fine-tune a technique, and to remember to enjoy my time on the water, regardless of that day's circumstances. Those are my standards.