Wayne P.

Most of the painted/riveted jon boats in the 10' length have a 32" bottom and a beam of about 46". The capacity of those is about 320# max for person and gear or 275#-280# in persons. If it is one of the old unpainted, kind of rough aluminum foil looking ones, they have a 30" bottom and would probably sink when you stepped in it at any place other than dead center.

I use 20# fluorocarbon for weight to make superline sink when fishing weightless wacky.

J, you may want to reconsider a SI unit over a video camera. The SI units will give you somewhat picture quality views of the water column and won't be affected by the water color or time of day or night. Another plus is you can see stuff quite a ways from the unit without being directly above it which may scare the fish.

grizzly, yes that is 1/4" electrical shrink tubing. I add it when fishing in heavy vegetation, timber, and around docks. It keeps the hook eye in the bait when it's being pulled thru stuff.

Hyco is a power plant lake. I haven't fished it this year due to my local snows. I think the fee to fish there is $15 a day. I've done well there in the Winter using the water temp pattern at various locations.

I use them this way in all conditions and depths to 30' so far:

You will have to guess where the water line will be on the hull when wet. Maybe there is a stain on the hull to help you. Then use this calculation from the Minn Kota web site: minnkotamotors.com/selectamotor/

Thru contact with the district conservation officer today, a couple more reasons for the HP restrictions that haven't been mentioned. Those are: the size of the body of water enters into the consideration and the temptation to use the larger engines above idle speed creating a hazard to other boaters and themselves. The number one reason is the lake was created as a fishing lake which lead to the trees being left standing in a majority of the water and done so with Federal and State Funds which gives the VDGIF the responsibility of management and control. Along with the management, was the stocking of Florida stain bass as an attempt to create a trophy size population (that sure has worked). Nearby Sandy River Lake is county owned and chose to use the Briery Creek rules for their model of management.

When my hand gets like this, I wear the thumb protector the next few days or I just don't fish for a few days and let it heal up some.

The bass's favorite worm rigged wacky style is a Zoom Finesse worm. I catch the most and largest using them. Color does not matter to the fish. 2/0 Octopus hook, rigged weedless wacky.

I get the torn up thumb deal occasionally, especially post spawn, and use a product similar to this. It's better than using duct tape like several Elite Pros were doing the past few years while fishing Falcon Lake and Armistad Lake. Fishing several consecutive days with many bass caught each day can be painful. thumbdinger.com

coopie84, I don't know without reading all the posts on the Yahoo Side Imaging Group page. You can visit that site and find out just about everything related to that technology. The activity on several sites has increased lately since the Down Imaging was added and the Lowrance Structure Scan was introduced. edited: I just read that the 800 khz coverage is not as wide as the 455 khz. You can see the specifications for coverage angles by checking a couple of unit's on the Humminbird web site.

The 565 and 535 units are discontinued. The 570 is the replacement for the 565. The 535 has 1/2 the screen resolution of the 565 and it's replacement is the 560. There is no 580 model. The 580 series are color screens and start in the $350 range.

That question was asked on the Side Imaging forums and the answer was the 800 khz gives a sharper image in shallow water and will not function in deep water. The 455 khz takes care of the deeper water and does reasonably well in shallow water. Also the longer shape of the HDSI transducer gives a sharper image when viewed on a computer monitor but may not be noticed on the unit screen.

Any of you that like to use big minnows for bass, this place is a top area for that presentation in March and April. The horizonal depression is the Briery Creek channel and the vertical depression is the submerged Rt. 701 on the West side of the creek channel. It's under the powerline heading towards the upper end.

This morning some ice was visible from the ramp at the dam and within sight of the mid lake ramp. This afternoon, most of the ice was gone. A lot of the lake water was around 36-38 degrees. I did find some 40-42 degree water after 2PM and some active bass. I caught a couple in this stuff:

burley: Poaching is the illegal hunting, fishing, trapping, or eating of wild plants or animals contrary to local and international conservation and wildlife management laws. The guys in the picture had been fishing and were moving to another area to fish. Their use of the 250 HP motor to take or attemp to take game fish was in an illegal manner. Is there another term to describe their offense?

There is no "trimmed up" rule there. You just cannot legally operate a gas motor above the 10HP max. limit. Keeping the big motor in the water just gives another part of the boat a place to hit a stump. Lots of large bass boats are on the lake in late Winter thru Spring from all over the country. There are a few poachers occasionally, some get caught, some don't. Here is one--

quanjig, the trees had nothing to do with the HP restriction. In reality, any boat that can get on plane can get you in trouble IF you are not familiar with it. The HP limit has been in force since the lake was opened to fishing and the trees were so thick you couldn't see the far shore line. If you are not careful, you can damage your boat and trolling motor if you try to go too fast thru the submerged stumps. Until Dec 2009, I had a 12' jon boat with a 9.9, it would GPS at 25 mph. I used to run WOT thru the forest of stumps and trees because I know where and how. I've been fishing there since it opened in January 1989.

Because it is a FISHING lake, not skiing, jet ski, sailing, pleasure boating, swimming, and whatever else people do on the water. Another 2 lakes in that area have the same HP restriction.

Steve, that body of water is just like any other body of water except for the trees, fish it as if they were not there. Whether or not you need to rely on your electronics depends on your fishing knowlege and how to determine where on a body of water to concentrate your search considering the weather and seasonal patterns. The most important instrument you will need is a thermometer.

Arron Martins does have a high cull number with an average of over 4# which higher than his livewell weight with an average is less than 2# Somebody is not getting or posting accurate info.

scottb123, PM sent

With ice still in some areas, prespawn is quite a ways off. I'll be trying to figure them out at Briery this weekend. edited: The last couple of times I have been there this year, the water was warmer at the North (dam) end near the ramp and handicap pier.

It's on the ESPN website Classic live blog.