Team9nine

I was with a retired friend who called me that morning and asked if I wanted to go out there later that day. He has a camper over in that section. We were just about to leave shortly after we saw you. He had to get home for an evening event. Never picked up the hair jig all afternoon. Jerkbaits the whole time. We caught a bunch of crappie on that spot along with about a dozen bass. Found one other good crappie spot down lake. Left them biting as they say - lol. Ended with about 32 bass in 3.5 hrs (1:30 to 5:00), so not too bad. Just hole hopped the whole time. He doesn't have a depth finder up by the trolling motor, so just kind of winged it on positioning. Best fish was the one I posted in "Latest Catch pics" thread. We each lost a big one, also.

I guess this is what a fish on a fall feeding binge looks like... Structure, breaks and breaklines.

We found them, too Ended with 10 or 12.

Used him several times Very legit. Good product and good price. Would use again, but shop around and check board sponsors, too.

Nope, but I'm an originalist in this regard. Everything ON the bottom is either a break or breakline as Catt said. Structure is a feature OF the bottom.

They are just a tool, albeit a very good one if kept in their rightful place. As you allude to though, if not understood or used correctly, you can waste a whole lot of time fishing for "fish" you see on your unit without much success. Not to be snarky, but, "No you're not." Points and humps ARE structure. Whatever you're looking for on them isn't 'structure.' Terminology matters. Not at all. It's nice to see fish on the finder, but you still have to determine what kind, and whether you can get them to bite. It's much more important to understand the bottom layout first (structure, breaks and breaklines) than it is to see "fish," IMO.

I have a lot of ML setups, and I personally never go above 8# braid. I actually use more 3# and 5# braid with them. Using yellow likely won't affect the bite. I use it a lot. Whatever braid you use, unless it's compromised, it's breaking strength will be above whatever it's rating is. The higher the strength used, the harder it will be to break. I suggest bringing a glove or have a tool with you you can use to protect your hand should you decide you have to break the line.

A lot of successful anglers with a lot of successful approaches, but every water is different and some approaches may or may not work for you. Here's another to consider... Structure, breaks and breaklines. If you don't know what they are, start by reading Spoonplugging by Buck Perry. Then, don't go deep looking for fish; go deep looking for these three features in the same place/area. That's referred to as a 'structure situation' (when combined with deep water). That's where you want to focus your attention to start. In these areas, cover all depths and speeds with whatever baits you want to use. You don't need to fish these areas long before moving on to the next. Revisit them several times a day, and on multiple days/trips. You'll quickly learn which spots are productive and when, and which ones aren't. P.S. A thermocline is just a 'breakline,' so use it as one of the three things you're looking for, together.

I think you're heading in the right direction with your thought process. Every lake is different, and even within lakes, not all fish do the same thing, but fish moving deeper as the thermocline drops is fairly common. Once it is completely gone, there are no longer depth barriers. I know we see this a lot in this area with walleye. Why they are there is usually just a guess, but deep water is the most stable, especially post turnover. There is most likely a food source doing similar allowing them to feed consistently, so you might work that angle a bit more. From what you listed, perch would be my first guess. I don't have hydrilla on my lakes, but bass moving to much more steeper/vertical channel banks at this time is a very common occurrence.

Damiki Vault

Love chasing crappie this time of year about as much as I do bass. Buddy and I picked up over 100 today.

Interesting you bring that up. In this particular pond, about half the fish I catch appear to be severely deficient in this regard, while the other half look fine. You can kind of see that on the first picture. Several I caught I didn't bother with a pic because of their poor condition (big head, skinny body). One particular fish of above average size, I'll be surprised if he lives another week he was in such poor condition. The fact that they can successfully strike a lure suggests to me that the bass, per se, aren't the issue, but that there simply isn't enough food to go around for everyone, and only the strongest/healthiest are making a good living for themselves. Two other ponds I spent time on were total opposites in this regard despite being connected together by a small inlet. One, the bass were fat as ticks, and strong as all get out. The other, 2/3rds were skinnier than they should be and obviously weren't getting enough food. Aspects like this are one of the reasons I like fishing new bodies of water. Each one is unique in some way, and ascertaining their differences is part of the fun of fishing, for me

No giants to see here, but some solid chunks that I'm pretty proud of. Been bank fishing a few new ponds, and this one particular one has been very stingy. It's clear water, very shallow and dishpan like, coverless, with grass growing over the bank edges. Turns out, that's where the bass like to just hang out, nose to the bank (literally) in just 4"-6" of water. If you walk fast or heavy, or get close, you get a splash of water at your feet as they spook and shoot straight to the center of the pond. Throw a heavy bait along the shoreline and splash the entry, they're out of there. Land more than 2 feet off the bank, they won't come out and get it. Too close to the bank, your line ends up over the grassy edge, bait spending half the time out of the water. Needless to say, this was a tough nut to crack, and catches have been meager, but I finally put the pieces together last night and managed over a dozen bass. Something special and satisfying when you finally make a good catch from a place that seems to have your number most days

Many people say they don't really notice a difference. However, if you look at the sequence of the ping pattern, turning ON jigging mode pings everything once before repeating, while turning OFF jigging mode pings the SI sides twice before repeating (while only hitting 2D once in that sequence). Some argue that degrades the quality of the 2D image at the expense of enhanced SI (longer lag time between 2D pings). Best thing to do is leave it off unless relying more heavily on your 2D image vs. your SI.

From HB: Jigging Mode - this is a selection in the 2D Sonar Express Menu. It allows the user to select the sonar ping pattern for use while vertical jigging. When turned ON the ping pattern will be: 200 kHz, Left SI Beam, Right SI Beam, 83 kHz, repeat. With this mode turned OFF the ping pattern will be: 200 kHz, Left SI Beam, Right SI Beam, 83 kHz, Left SI Beam, Right SI Beam, repeat. Basically this feature prioritizes the 2D beam over the SI beam.

To the OP, if all nylon/copoly makes your fishing life happy, more power to you. As someone mentioned, there was a time when we all fished that way since modern braids and fluoro weren't available, yet we still caught fish. To those doubting the sensitivity advantage of fluoro over nylons...your loss

Nice catch. Best all-around, moving bait rod, ever. In my book, no other rod can touch that one for the money. Too bad they're not made anymore.

Friend and I caught over 250 crappie on a trip late last week - had a great time. Water temps are starting to cool, trees are near their peak colors, and even saw a few bald eagles ? Love fall fishing!

Still hoping to get out there with you sometime after their Classic next weekend. Finally moved and starting to unpack all the fishing gear.

Good afternoon on Glenn Flint yesterday. Picked up 9 keepers deep cranking along with a couple shorts, and even got to catch a couple dozen crappie for fun before the wind got to be too much. Water temp mid 60s and lots of shad schools on the move. Fall is here.

Sorry, but you lost me when you stated that, "The new moon is no good," and that your results correlated with Murphy's, but then the first line in Murphy's chart says the new moon IS good, as is the waxing crescent, which wasn't good in your data analysis. It all comes down to how you parse the data. I've run the same analysis on the larger (400+ bass) ShareLunker data, and parts of it match what you found, parts of it match what Murphy found, and other parts don't agree with either. Then there's the scientific data (studies) that don't match up with widely held angler belief and/or observation in regards to full moon influence on spawning. In the end, I think the best you can hope for is hints of possibly supportive data that happen to coincide with favorable local weather patterns and your ability to go fishing on those days as a best case scenario.

Agree completely. There might be classes of rods with little or no statistically significant difference, but you could group them as more or less sensitive than another class of rods. There should be glaring differences among rods of different material compositions, and likely discernible differences among grades or classes of the same material (e.g., graphite - IM or tonnage).

Take your experiment exactly as written above and you're stuck in everyone's own interpretation (opinion) of which is more sensitive. But change your experiment ending, instead putting those rods in the hand of a lab who could analyze which one transferred vibration/impulses faster, at higher amplitudes, and had higher resonant frequencies combined with specific action angles, accounting for any dampening effect and you'd have my definition of which rod was most sensitive. There would be nothing arbitrary about it. I'll tell you which one is more sensitive. Whether any of us can tell that difference or not by feel is a completely different question to ask, to me

Not me...