5/7 Evening Blackwater

[johnr]

Even though it was windy and cold, we decided we'd try it anyhow. We headed out around 4pm from Penhook in search of bait. We soon found this:
But there was no bait in that area. Crappies though!

Made a move to the back of another nearby creek and started marking scattered bait deep 15-25'. In short order we had a couple dozen money makers and 5-6" peanuts. Perfect for what we were gonna do.

Went out to the main channel confluence area which was like the ocean in those winds. We searched a while and actually found some fish on the downwind shoreline but when I deployed the trolling motor and promptly took a wave over the port bow, I decided we'd be better off to go fish the lee! So we did. And we found a few right off. We lost the first one, broke the second one off, and missed a buried down line for the third bite but then we got our stuff together. We did find a massive school piled on a point but they must have been "doin it" because we went through them twice without a bite.





Fish on:



Water was 66ish. Wind was strong. Air was chilly.

[mwardncsu]

Good repot John! Glad you found a few that wanted to eat.

[coheasion]

Awesome report! Love the pics of the family out spending some time together1

[bushwacker]

Nice report. Always good fishing with the Fam.

[medicineman]

Great report !

[fatdaddy]

Sweet

[drag4striper]

Love that report, your daughter has got to touch all the fish....... Before long she will be taking the rod out of your hands.

I look forward to those future reports. Brings back good memories when my girl was growing up.

[Shadslinger]

Awesome report. Good times with the family. Im curious what settings you run on the side scan. Ive got a echo map as well. Curious to see how close we are

[choochoo]

Doin it right.

[johnr]

May 8, 2017 18:50:42 GMT -5 drag4striper said:

Love that report, your daughter has got to touch all the fish....... Before long she will be taking the rod out of your hands.

I look forward to those future reports. Brings back good memories when my girl was growing up.

She's my bait collector and tank emptier now. She's also figured out how to adjust planer board distance from the boat, so anytime one of us touches a rod, she's on another one reeling it in. Monkey see, monkey do. I'm hoping to have her reeling in some crappies or slab gills here soon. 

May 8, 2017 20:48:40 GMT -5 Shadslinger said:

Awesome report. Good times with the family. Im curious what settings you run on the side scan. Ive got a echo map as well. Curious to see how close we are

I mainly keep it on the stock settings for side imaging.  I have tried messing with the contrast and gain settings for the side imaging, and haven't really seen where it's helped me yet. I did turn the TVG to High once, and it basically cleaned up the image to the point that I wasn't seeing anything up close. I could see it helping when searching wide for suspended fish though as it amplifies the far returns before displaying them.  I want to get it dialed in to look under docks for panfish, but I haven't had the time to do it yet. I actually haven't used the regular sonar or down imaging on it yet, so I don't know about them.  I do know that the GPS is far more accurate on the Garmin than my Lowrance. 

[Shadslinger]

I've fooled with mine some but mainly have been running default settings also

[hotdog]

WTG John! It looks like great family fun.

[31Airborne]

Great pics! Good on ya, dad. Keep that little one on the water. You def married up, btw.

So, the first image shows someone's sled resting on the bottom. You don't see that every day.

[johnr]

I'm going to get some pictures of that boat if the water ever clears up. It was about 30-40' off the end of a dock. Think it's about 15-17' long.

And yes, I got lucky. Been fishing for her since we were little kids. It only took about 15 years to hook her.

[mwardncsu]

There are a couple of boats on the bottom in my creek - one looks like a 10' job boat but the other is larger. Cool to check them out on side and downscan.