realitybias

Haha! Yeah, I've heard a lot of nasty words when Gar enter the sentence. They are predatory, from what I hear, and they tend to ruin fishing in the area. I'll tell you, from the way they were surfacing and gulping down bait, I can see why they are hated. A friend suggested I use steel leaders, but said the same thing as you: They are crazy hard to catch. I guess I'll just give up on them and go back to fishing bass. It was the first time I had ever seen them in the area, so I doubt I'll see them again.. I hope.

I kind of thought to myself.. by the way... those fish were HUGE, those gar. How do I catch one? Lol!

So I took your advice... and it worked out TOO well. I was chilling out, fishing off the bank, proudly totting my new 20 lbs test line, pumped and ready to catch something big... I got exactly what I asked for. Out of NOWHERE, at least 4 alligator garr just started jumping around and tore my line off of my pole. It was horrible! Haha. And SO unexpected.

Lake D'arbonne in farmerville, louisiana. I am slowly wrestling this lake, and refuse to move on to any other lake. This place has kicked my butt, and yet, I'm still fighting to get my own footing. It has produced some dreamworthy monsters, and all it ever gives me are 1-2 pound stripers. One day, I'll get a dream fish there.

Is there a major advantage fishing cross current rather than from atop the spillway? I know that I've always fished from atop, although if a real big one ever does hit, I'll have to move down to the banks anyway and let it swim around with my hook while doing so. I've seen it done before (no way you'll get a monster up a 30 foot drop).

Thanks so much, Avid, and I'll try the spinnerbait idea. I'm glad you see the conundrum, because I'm still having fun catching fish, nothing beats catching them, but I'd have a whole lot MORE fun if I were catching big fish rather than half-pound whatchamacallets every 30 seconds. Then again, I'd have a whole lot less fun if I were to catch nothing at all.

So anyways, I've been fishing this spot for a while. Lately, we've been getting a lot of catches... but the problem is, they are all small. I fish on top of a spillway, where the current is extremely heavy. This of course helps catch fish, because the bait fish like shad have no control against the current. The problem is, I'm getting kind of bored with catching small fish. We could try to change to shad, of course, but what is the chance that one big fish hits my one shad in the middle of a giant mass of them? Right now, I'm using night crawlers, by the way. I'm just wondering if any of you have any luck with particular bait in heavy current?

Here is a bad resolution pic of the actual spillway http://www.denmon.com/images/darbonne_01.jpg

You're right, though, the rain probably puts a dampener on things... I hope that next time I go, hopefully NOT after a giant rain storm, the fishw ill be biting more.

Thanks for the welcome, guys. I'll try to get some pictures up next time I go of the area. It's lake D'Arbonne in Farmerville, Louisiana. It really is a great place to fish, if anyone is familiar with it. I'm just trying to get technique down... I suppose it might be best if I posted a more general question.. What are some good techniques to catching fish in murky water from a bank? And should I be fishing in the calm still-water stream that is spawned from the river, or should I be fishing in the rougher waters? (people have success in both).

So I have just started fishing for my first time in about 8 years, and I've pretty much completely forgotten how to fish. I fish at a spillway, a very beautiful place, where water from a lake spills over the dam from 80 feet to 30 feet. The air temperature today was about 48 degrees and VERY windy (10-15 mph, I'd figure. Even more at some times). I fish at the bottom sector of this spillway, closer to the spillway, the water is quite deep and EXTREMELY choppy (3-4 foot crests). It isn't this choppy in all places, though, and in fact, there are small inlets that are COMPLETELY still even when the spillway stream is choppy. The water quality is VERY murky, I can see maybe a foot down into the water before it gets too dark for me to see further. Some locations, though, such as the still water area, seems to be a bit more clear (but not much). Let me go over the landscape, before I go over the two days that I fished, and how they went down. Some people get EXCELLENT results fishing from this spot and catching striped bass with shad. I'm always surprised how close to this giant torrent of water fish seem to hang out, but hey, it seems to work for them. I've never caught anything there... but I'd love to. They were really hauling in the big ones here. Some people fish from ATOP the spillway. I dont think I could ever do this.. it involves bringing a fish up 50 or so feet, but it seems to work for them. Still they dont get near the amount of bites as the people at the bottom. Other alternative locations that people fish from are the center, where the water is quite deep, from boats. That is not an option for me, although sometimes, I can throw a cork and get it to go to the general location. The places that I have fished the most in this area are a still-water inlet that runs off into another river.. this inlet is so very still that it is a huge contrast between it and the torrent that it merges with. The water is clearer here, but not by much, and every so often, I could see a few fish jumping out of the water, so I know they are there. The other place that I fish often is the spot where the inlet merges with the river created by the spillway. The merging spot is interesting, as one part of it has a heavy current, and one part of it does not. There are plenty of trees that are submerged in this area, and it is quite easy to get tangled up, but bass seem to love this place, and I keep getting reports of people fishing this place and getting lucky. So the question is... what should I do in a situation such as this? What am I doing wrong? Because in two days and over 12 hours of fishing, I've caught nothing yet. The first day, I went from 6:00 AM to 12:00 PM, and fished from the side of the torrent of water that rushes over the spillway. I didnt catch anything, and neither did my two friends. I was using little plastic grub with a hook in it, and a sinker (not sure what weight). I then switched to cork, and shad fish, got nothing. The day before, it had rained a bit, but the water was relatively calm and the spillway wasnt really much of a torrent as it was a gentle waterfall. There were plenty of boat fishers, but it seemed nobody was catching anything. The weather was about 60 degrees F. The next day, I fished again immediately after a huge storm, from 11 AM to 5 PM. I used spinner attached to cork, spinner not attached to cork, worm attached to sinker, worm attached to cork, and shad. I think my problem may have been that I changed locations too often.. But anyhow... What was I doing wrong, and do you guys have any tips? The next day, I fished with a spinner bait attached to a cork, and got not even so much as a nibble. Likewise, I fished with a