August 11th

[ragincajun]

Work schedule once again caused me to fish the hardest & hottest part of the day. Son, using a minnow, caught a 22" bowfin that gave him the fight of his life. He doesn't really get into fishing or go that often, so this made his day. I personally would like to see less bowfin and garpike, but he enjoys seeing so many big fish swimming around and catching that bowfin. I started strong with 2 small bass and one big smallie, about 16 or 17 that got off at the boat. Then preceded to have a large mouth about 10 inches jump out of the water and spit out my hook. I only have one medium heavy pole which I wasn't using as per the set up I had on it. I struggled to set the hook properly with the medium pole. I fish 99% of the time with finesse lures like senko's and should own two medium heavy poles. I then boated a 16.5" largemouth that weighed two pounds 8 ounces. After that, the heat really sat in and the water temp I noticed was 84.4 degrees. I was having luck off the bottom using a weighted hook with tubes and crawfish style yamamoto's. Which I will have to buy online, as the log cabins don't have them. I stopped at their dock to buy more with no luck.

Wish someone could teach me a little about fish finders. Is there a book out there, "fish finders for dummies"? How do you find shoals? Like midnight shoal or the one out directly from the state launch that I have heard about. Getting tired of fishing banks, island points and bays.

[Niagara-eyes]

Hi Ragin. The best book I have ever read on the subject is "The comprehensive guide to fish locators" by Babe Winkelman. The book is somewhat dated as it was published in the '80s. There is very little info LCD graphs, which is what just about everyone uses these days. ( I do still have two flashers on my boat plus a new lowrance HDS-7) You can apply the paper graph info to our LCD's of today. Copies might be hard to find but I do see them on ebay and amazon. Its still something that as good as our graphs are today they are still only a fraction of the resolution a good paper graph from 1985 had! At least we don't have to change paper, replace stylus or clean carbon dust anymore. I like finding structure with my flashers, then fish the areas thouroughly using the HDS to really search the structure for bait or the "spot on a spot" that might hold fish. A properly tuned in flasher will show soft vs hard bottom, mud vs shoals, rock vs weeds instantly.Good luck!

[ragincajun]

Thanks for your help. I own a lowrance elite 5 and a lowrance elite 5x. One has GPS and they both are color with a strong transducer. I believe they will do all I need, its just understanding what I am looking at and how to spot structure as well as shoals. I will check out the book. Thanks.

[wildchild]

Hey Ragin. I found a one hour "how to" DVD on a website called havefunfishing.com. They have a five minute sample video on utube. Thinking about ordering one myself.

[ragincajun]

Thanks. Going to check it out right now before bed.