Most rewarding way to fish

[Dalton Tam]

Where I live, it is mostly shallow water cypress lakes that are great to fish year round with the exception of the Dog days of summer unless you plan on getting there super early or fishing late evening till dark. The reason for this is the shallow water. These lakes have no Thermocline. Well... I finally got a new truck so now I can go a little ways from the house and learn to fish some deeper lakes. Me and buddy went up to a lake called Grand Bayou Reservior Saturday morning. We caught a few fish on topwater and flukes early that morning on grass flats. When the sun came out the bite slowed down so I knew we had to do something different. My buddy said there was an underwater ridge in this lake that everyone caught fish on but I wasn't used to this type of fishing. We went out and tried it anyway. I dropped the trolling moter and stayed on the front deck to watch my depth finder while my buddy idled us around out in the middle and sure enough we found a ridge that dropped from 10' to 22' very quickly. We stopped and decided to fish there and I had no confidence whatsoever. I threw out a Junebug red trick worm with a pegged 3/8 oz weight. We postioned our boat in 10' and threw into 20'. I learned to fish uphill by reading on BassResource. ;D About the third cast I felt thump thump and caught one about 1 and 3/4 lb. Not a big fish but it was a fish! I got the fish of and found my postion again and then I caught another one about 2 3/4 lb. to 3lbs. That time the boat traffic picked up and it was hard to find the postion again. We never could find the right spot again. I caught only two fish off the ridge  . I have to honestly say that those fish were some of the most rewarding that I have ever cuaght. I realize that I need to bring my GPS along with me from now on to mark the ridge on, I need to get me a few orange markers to leave floating and I need to bring along an anchor. I was curious if anyone could give me anymore tips about this type of fishing? I plan on learning to do it well and I'm not afraid to ask for help. lol Here are the pictures from this weekend. Any help would be appreciated.

First fish!

Second Fish!

My Green boat and my New green truck!

[Big-O]

Sounds like a great start BFM, and if you quit getting hits fishing up the ledge or drop off...position you boat so that you are paralleling the ledge at the fish holding depth. Then your retrieve and your bait will be in the strike zone all the way to the boat.

I am also a big fan of casting up on the shallow part of the ledge and pulling the bait toward the deep drop maintaining bottom contact the entire time by fishing extremely slow. I will often mark the ledge at a given depth with two or more bouys 75 yrds apart so that I can know the correct alignment. These details are time consuming but I'd rather spend much more time in the strike zone than reeling to and from it 

Big O

www.ragetail.com

[evrgladesbasser]

Cool story BFM. Way to figure out where they were holding. You picked your technique, stuck with it, and were rewarded. Good job I don't do much deepwater fishing, but I'm sure more info will be coming your way......

[firefightn15]

Congrats on the new ride Magician, sounds like there's a lot of miles gonna be put on that puppy yet this summer!

[Dalton Tam]

Congrats on the new ride Magician, sounds like there's a lot of miles gonna be put on that puppy yet this summer!

Ha! yea you got that right! I went to a local outdoor store yesterday and got some floating markers and looked at some new depth finders to put on my console so that I can really buckle down and learn how to deep water fish.

[Big-O]

Congrats on the new ride Magician, sounds like there's a lot of miles gonna be put on that puppy yet this summer!

Ha! yea you got that right! I went to a local outdoor store yesterday and got some floating markers and looked at some new depth finders to put on my console so that I can really buckle down and learn how to deep water fish.

That's the way to get in the game...hot pursuit 

Big O

www.ragetail.com

[Vinny Chase]

Congrats on the new ride Magician, sounds like there's a lot of miles gonna be put on that puppy yet this summer!

Ha! yea you got that right! I went to a local outdoor store yesterday and got some floating markers and looked at some new depth finders to put on my console so that I can really buckle down and learn how to deep water fish.

Very jealous dude! I have been saving for a boat for 3 years and about to get my own i cant wait to try things i could never do with my pontoon!

BTW thats a beautiful, healthy bass you got in your avatar

[Dalton Tam]

Congrats on the new ride Magician, sounds like there's a lot of miles gonna be put on that puppy yet this summer!

Ha! yea you got that right! I went to a local outdoor store yesterday and got some floating markers and looked at some new depth finders to put on my console so that I can really buckle down and learn how to deep water fish.

Very jealous dude! I have been saving for a boat for 3 years and about to get my own i cant wait to try things i could never do with my pontoon!

BTW thats a beautiful, healthy bass you got in your avatar

Thanks man I caught her in January at some private lakes about 10 miles away. I was flipping cypress trees in about 5-6 foot of water but the secret was a light weight because the fish were suspended underneath the first root system. I've went back to that lake this summer but had little succes. It is super grassy and really deep. The water temp was in the upper 90's and the grass was too thick to fish deep so it is very difficult in the summer time.