(Un)official Hoosiers Thread

[IndianaFinesse]

1 hour ago, OddChase said:

I don't have a boat yet but how painful is fishing the Ned in 20+ feet of water? I imagined it as a shallow water tactic, especially when most people use a 1/10-1/16 oz jig head. 

If really isn't designed to be fished out any deeper than 10-12 feet, but I sometimes will do it anyways.  It is designed for shallow water like you were thinking (and really is best suited for shallow water) and this is the one place where i tend to go outside the original midwest finesse guidelines.  To make it possible I up size the jig head to 3/32 (I just got the Midwest finesse mold so this is now possible for me to use) or 1/8 ounce.  It still takes a while to sink, and probably isn't the best tool for the job though.  I should have stuck with the 1/8 ounce bucktail jig out deep, that might have done better.

[Alan Reed]

Anyone else make it to the Indiana Fishing Expo yesterday? Personally I thought it was a great show this year. I enjoyed the speakers and found some good deals on a few products.

[frosty]

5 hours ago, Alan Reed said:

Anyone else make it to the Indiana Fishing Expo yesterday? Personally I thought it was a great show this year. I enjoyed the speakers and found some good deals on a few products.

Unfortunately I was in a safety meeting that lasted most of the day  

[frosty]

For you guys that have boats, I'm going to be getting a small boat to use on electric only lakes. I know you have to go to the bmv to register it, and I read about the lake permit for certain state run parks and lakes, but don't you have to have a launch permit? I know we had to have the sticker on our boat we had when I was a kid that had a boat on a ramp, do they still do that? Btw, if it matters, it won't be on a trailer, I'm getting a pelican bass raider. 

[IndianaFinesse]

Got out for two hours of fishing before the extremely exciting Superbowl.  90% of the lake is still frozen over, including the ramp, so we launched the boat into the ice. As in backed the trailer down into the ice, had to pull the trailer out from underneath the boat so it could get turned around to plow threw the ice.  Had a couple very amused spectators that pulled into the marina parking lot to watch, they thought it was pretty funny to watch us launch our boat into a frozen lake.  Probably thought we were insane.

 Found some open water near the dam and started off fishing there, I was wanting to get off the shore to start making a map but that was the only part of the lake that was open.  Only picked up one dink along the whole face of the dam, so I decided to try where they were a few weeks ago.  Problem was, that area was frozen over.  So I broke through the ice to get there and to make enough space between ice chunks to drop a line through, and made a huge amount of noise getting there while acting as an ice breaker. We were literally jigging in the space between broken ice chunks, in a boat surrounded by ice on all sides, after making enough noise to wake the dead getting there.  

Surprisingly the fish came back, and ended up catching 8 bluegill and two bass on ice jigs tied onto ice rods.  Couldn't have used full sized rods if we wanted to, the only place we could fish was right next to the boat between chunks of ice.

It was nice to go fishing after two weeks of being unable to, and it was pretty crazy fishing in a boat on ice, fishing in a hole that we made in the ice, using ice fishing equipment.  It was practically ice fishing, except more challenging.

 

[IndianaFinesse]

Anyone try Turtle creek power plant lake recently?  I've heard the bass fishing has declined significantly, but at least the bass should be more active there.

[IndianaFinesse]

My plans to start making a paper map were once again foiled by the weather today.  I tried to start making one, but snow/rain doesn't mix well with paper.  Found a good school in 17 feet of water off of a point, hugging bottom around a large brush pile.  Only managed three bass on vertically jigged blade baits, but I didn't expect much with the plummeting barometer from the cold front last night.   Snow came down hard for a while, couldn't see the shoreline from where I was fishing for a good part of the two hour trip.  I always like to try to get out a couple times a year during a good snow storm, even though the fishing usually isn't any good, just cause its cool to look around and see nothing but snow.

[lonnie g]

22 hours ago, IndianaFinesse said:

My plans to start making a paper map were once again foiled by the weather today.  I tried to start making one, but snow/rain doesn't mix well with paper.  Found a good school in 17 feet of water off of a point, hugging bottom around a large brush pile.  Only managed three bass on vertically jigged blade baits, but I didn't expect much with the plummeting barometer from the cold front last night.   Snow came down hard for a while, couldn't see the shoreline from where I was fishing for a good part of the two hour trip.  I always like to try to get out a couple times a year during a good snow storm, even though the fishing usually isn't any good, just cause its cool to look around and see nothing but snow.

wow! tougher than me man . snow! yuck! I think the word is cold not cool. congrats on the 3 catches  my grandsons actually wanted to fish my pond today, told them it was to cold. man I'm getting old!  

[hoosierbass07]

I went to the Indiana Outdoor show today along with two of my brothers.  Had a nice time.  Ended up buying a Lews Tournament Pro Speed Spool I've been wanting.  Wasn't planning on spending $190 or so but you know... it looked good so I had to have it! 

 

 I really enjoyed walking around the boat section even though I think prices are nuts.  I saw ski boats for almost $100,000.00!  Walking around the camper section is fun too.  

 

 I've been to the Outdoor show now three years and I thought this year the tackle sellers might have been down by one or two sellers.  I did listen to Joe Thomas give a talk on top of the water tank.  I've never actually stayed for a talk before.  I was a little surprised it lasted only twenty or so minutes and he didn't really say anything important.  

 

 I'm not a Harely fan so the motorcycle show was, to me, boring.  Wished they had street bikes but only say two.  

 

 Overall I enjoy going and walking around for three or four hours, once a year.  The weather makes it feel a little odd.  The Outdoor show is supposed to take place in cold February, not spring February.  Oh well, I'll take it.  

 

 

[BassOnKlinger]

16 hours ago, hoosierbass07 said:

I went to the Indiana Outdoor show today along with two of my brothers.  Had a nice time.  Ended up buying a Lews Tournament Pro Speed Spool I've been wanting.  Wasn't planning on spending $190 or so but you know... it looked good so I had to have it! 

 

 I really enjoyed walking around the boat section even though I think prices are nuts.  I saw ski boats for almost $100,000.00!  Walking around the camper section is fun too.  

 

 I've been to the Outdoor show now three years and I thought this year the tackle sellers might have been down by one or two sellers.  I did listen to Joe Thomas give a talk on top of the water tank.  I've never actually stayed for a talk before.  I was a little surprised it lasted only twenty or so minutes and he didn't really say anything important.  

 

 I'm not a Harely fan so the motorcycle show was, to me, boring.  Wished they had street bikes but only say two.  

 

 Overall I enjoy going and walking around for three or four hours, once a year.  The weather makes it feel a little odd.  The Outdoor show is supposed to take place in cold February, not spring February.  Oh well, I'll take it.  

 

 

I'm heading to the boat show this weekend. My dream boat is the Nautique Super Air G23. 

 

Unrelated to the boat show,  I got out for the first time since fall today. I'm not a winter fisherman. I hate the cold. But as everyone has noticed, it's 60+ degrees and sunny, so I'm outside fishing. Had no luck pulling jigs along the bottom of my local spot. Will try again tomorrow, perhaps with a different presentation. If anyone has  a tip for this weird February weather we're having, feel free to help me out. 

 

 

[dsqui]

Silver buddies are always a bass favorite early in the spring or try a Ned rig 

[IndianaFinesse]

Got out and enjoyed the spring like weather yesterday for a bit over two hours.  Caught half a dozen decent fish in the 13-18 inch range on the vision 110, fished along steep dropping banks.  Also caught a single fish on the Ned rig skipped underneath a deep dock, but I stuck with the vision cause it was getting a better size.  I was still catching them in winter areas like I expected, but I ran into a guy on the water who claimed to be catching some in the backs of coves. I don't particularly trust this particular person to not try to get me to fish unproductive water so there are less people on the fish, but its something else to consider. They were somewhat active hitting a four second pause following two twitches.  Water temperature is roughly 45 degrees on the upper end of the lake and 42 in the lower.

Had to share the lake with eight or ten other boats, not something I've had to deal with since last October.  I rather enjoy it when I'm the only person on the lake and I can fish wherever I want, every spring I'm reminded that it is not my own private lake. It sure seams like it is during the wintertime when only one other angler is ever out.

[lonnie g]

been seeing bass in the shallow end of my and neighbors ponds past few days.

[BassOnKlinger]

Is it illegal (or frowned upon) to create rock piles in lakes? I've heard of numerous people dropping Christmas trees in them, but recently I've heard of people stacking cinder blocks in a pile. I'm sure this is nothing new, but I just want to know if it's legal. If so, I may have to consider creating some hot spots in my home lake. 

 

 

 

[IndianaFinesse]

5 minutes ago, BassOnKlinger said:

Is it illegal (or frowned upon) to create rock piles in lakes? I've heard of numerous people dropping Christmas trees in them, but recently I've heard of people stacking cinder blocks in a pile. I'm sure this is nothing new, but I just want to know if it's legal. If so, I may have to consider creating some hot spots in my home lake. 

 

 

 

Usually you're allowed to take as much out of a lake as you want (within reason) but aren't technically allowed to put anything in without a permit or something, I believe.  I could be wrong on that so don't take my word for it.  But it doesn't stop very many anglers from planting rock piles and what not, and I may or may not have planted a few artificial bushes and small rock piles.  Thinking about planting a few more now that I better understand where best to place them.

[BassOnKlinger]

Thanks for the info.  Where do feel are good places to drop some rocks? 

[IndianaFinesse]

7 hours ago, BassOnKlinger said:

Thanks for the info.  Where do feel are good places to drop some rocks? 

Off of points and on break lines between shallow and deep water, just dropping them on a wide open flat will not be effective (at least for bass).  It has to be connected to deep water and shallow water in some way, by a series of brush piles, a break line, rock piles, etc. in some combination.  The fish aren't going to go to a brush pile all by itself, they are just going to use the breaks that lead completely to the shallows and that go all the way to the deepest water in the area. So say you have some nice structure leading off of a point toward deep water, but the last break before the deep water is to far away for the bass to use it.  Dropping a brush pile between the last break and the deep water drop off could make the fish recognize it as a path to and from deep water, after a little bit of time.  

[IndianaFinesse]

Took advantage of this warm weather this afternoon before the cold front comes threw this Saturday.  Caught 17 bass, some on steep dropping shorelines, some on main lake shores and docks, a few of a deep brush pile, and some scattered throughout coves.  About a dozen of them hit the Ned rig, and all but one of the others (got him on the pointer 65) were caught on a baby boo jig. Water temperature's about 48-49 degrees on the main lake and up to 52 degrees in the coves.

[IndianaFinesse]

Water temperature is up to 53 degrees in the coves today, and the fish were up shallow and feeding actively.  I even caught one on a topwater popper today, and had 24 other bass to go along with it in four hours of fishing.  Caught a few of the better sized fish on a paddle tail swim bait, a couple on a crankbait, a few on finesse jigs, and the rest on half of a zinkerz.  Some of the bass were on the main lake, but the majority had moved up into the coves.  The water temperature is five degrees warmer in the coves which probably helped draw them into them.  It was cool to be able to catch bass on topwater in February, I just tied one on for the heck of it, and was pleasantly surprised when a bass nailed it around sunset.

[IndianaFinesse]

Water temperature has dropped seven degrees in the last two days, bringing the temperature down to 46. I surprisingly caught fifteen bass in a little over two hours yesterday, despite the massive cold front. Found them on deep docks and the eight to ten foot drop about fifty feet off of several points, hugging brush piles in the break line.  All of the bass hit a 3/32 ounce jig with half of a zinkerz, I tried a jig to reduce hang ups in the brush but they wouldn't take it.

[Cole Richards]

2 hours ago, IndianaFinesse said:

Water temperature has dropped seven degrees in the last two days, bringing the temperature down to 46. I surprisingly caught fifteen bass in a little over two hours yesterday, despite the massive cold front. Found them on deep docks and the eight to ten foot drop about fifty feet off of several points, hugging brush piles in the break line.  All of the bass hit a 3/32 ounce jig with half of a zinkerz, I tried a jig to reduce hang ups in the brush but they wouldn't take it.

What part of the state is this report from , I have not been out and am wondering what the water temps are like in the northern part of the state.  

[Team9nine]

1 minute ago, Cole Richards said:

What part of the state is this report from , I have not been out and am wondering what the water temps are like in the northern part of the state.  

 

Central Indiana - all lakes ice free down here. Had a friend up north who had to break ice to get out on the water last week up by Ft. Wayne. Water up there running 38-40.

[Cole Richards]

1 minute ago, Team9nine said:

 

Central Indiana - all lakes ice free down here. Had a friend up north who had to break ice to get out on the water last week up by Ft. Wayne. Water up there running 38-40.

That's what I figured , All this rain should help bring up the temps in the lake up pretty quick .  Guess I need to get the boat out soon.  

[IndianaFinesse]

8 hours ago, Cole Richards said:

What part of the state is this report from , I have not been out and am wondering what the water temps are like in the northern part of the state.  

What T-9 said, a flatland type reservoir near central Indiana.

BTW, caught another 13 bass in an hour of fishing before dark in the same areas and on the same bait as yesterday.

[IndianaFinesse]

I'm excited that I'm finally catching some offshore fish, the bass I've caught over the past few days are basically my first bass caught that aren't relating to something visible.  But i've still got a long ways to go to even begin to understand offshore bass. Caught 15 bass (and one bonus 13" crappie) in a three hours this afternoon, with five over fifteen inches and a 4.3 pound kicker.  The 4.3 only measured ~20 inches, but it had a seven inch bluegill sticking out of it's greedy throat which helped boost the weight a bit.  Caught a couple of them on half of a zinkerz on a mushroom head, and the rest hit a 4" finesse worm on an 1/8 ounce shaky head.  Found a couple more good underwater bars sitting in 10-15 feet of water and extending out to the 20 foot depth which produced most of the fish, again holding tight to brush on the break line. 

Any ideas for weedless lures to fish the brush in deeper 46 degree water? They don't seem to want a jig (at least not fished away from the shore for some reason) and the brush is eating up the zinkerzs and shaky heads a lot faster than I'd like.  Or maybe that's just part of deeper water fishing until the water warms up enough to throw a jig.