Hillsdale 2/6/2012

[LBM]

Fished Hillsdale from daylight till noon for another day of CPR. Guessing there was 8 legal caught out of the bunch. I was the only boat on the lake for the first hour then a boat launched and headed up the Big Bull. About half hour later a second boat approached close enough to say hello. I knew he was interested in fishing the area I was working since I had seen him out there before but had never spoken to him. He had seen me catch a fish as he approached but remained probably four boat lengths away. Found out he was late getting out this morning because he was waiting for the fog to lift and he ask how the fog was for me. I told him there was no fog at the lake as you'll see from the pictures and only faint fog as I left the house this morning. I found out he lived in a neighboring city of where I live. He asked me about the regular fisher by name that had been fishing nearby me the other day and if I knew where he was this morning and of course I didn't know. Then he proceeded fishing a semi-circle around me keeping that four boat length distances away all the while. We didn't exchange names and didn't speak to each other again. I continued working my spot for some time while he worked at a respectable distance from me. Not getting any more bites I then trolled out of the area back to the area I had started in to check if maybe I would now be seeing the shad pods that I hadn't seen earlier. He then moved in working what he wanted while I worked my area probably 60 yards away. We both worked our own respective areas for a bit and we both decided at about the same time that we needed to move on to something else.
Now why would I post something like this? Well I consider this other fisher a respectful and considerate fisher and in any future encounters with him on the water I'll definitely be open to further conversation with him. Though I don't know if that will be his attitude towards me since everyone knows I am a grouchy old fart. I just laid this narrative out to show how I think respectful fishers should behave themselves around others on the water. All this blather is just trying to show what I consider proper etiquette looks like just in case there are inconsiderate lurkers on here that just might want to know.
No ice this morning. Leaving the ramp.
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This is my first area to work.
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Just more boring pictures of most of the fish I caught today. As you notice some were less than 10 inches and are the ones I always like for the second fisher on board to catch and keep them off of my hooks. Since on one else was on board I ended up catching some.
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[huntcapn]

Nice Lee....thanks for the pics...nice to know what a crappie looks like...

[slabby joe]

Can't fool me with your camera tricks....that's the same dang fish over and over and over again....come on Lee show us some different fish and I see word has gotten around to ''keep your distance from DIRTY HARRY in that red lund"

[kingfish387]

Great post and pics.

[Ronald Meeder]

Dirty Harry in the red lund, new handle, nice pictures and tread, glad you are getting the tug. I noticed also you were doing catch and release, good sportmens.

[FairWeather]

If you don't mind me asking, I was wondering why the 2nd GPS? Noticed the handheld and thought about doing that myself so as not to have to buy a new finder, but recently got a good deal on an integrated GPS/sounder. Thanks for the post.

[LBM]

If you don't mind me asking, I was wondering why the 2nd GPS? Noticed the handheld and thought about doing that myself so as not to have to buy a new finder, but recently got a good deal on an integrated GPS/sounder. Thanks for the post.

I had used the Garmin GPS for sometime before getting the Lowrance with GPS. I ended up learning how to use the GPSMap76 with map orientation in the 'north up' mode and later learned most folks used their GPS's in either 'track up' or 'course up' mode which is much easier for folks to determine from the display whether they needed to steer left or right or forwards or back to arrive at their way point. As one having spent as much time as I did on the water and not actually catching fish I kind of found it some what entertaining and satisfying with the mental activity at deciphering and figuring out as to just which direction I needed to turn for the way point. If the boat was headed north one used the display as it was showing but if I was headed south the actual direction was the exact opposite. Now in dense fog using the north up orientation is certainly a more problematic situation for actually finding the way point. Having gotten used to the north up orientation I continued with that mode on the Lowrance.

I now use the Lowrance GPS to arrive at and get in the vicinity then use the Garmin to actually work the brush pile. I keep the Garmin zoomed in max and leave the Lowrance zoomed out further then I can still see the way point on the Lowrance if the way point is off the screen on the Garmin. For me this allows me to work in a up to over and around fashion on the pile as the GPS refreshes and from what I'm seeing on the graph. If I want to really get deep into the pile and knock on the doors deep with in with my jigs I'll drop a buoy since I think its impossible for a GPS to hold me tight enough on the pile to work it in this fashion all due to the inherent delayed refresh rate they all have.

Another reason for the second GPS is that on my Lowrance the way points are stored on the internal computer and not on the chip card so all the way points would be lost by doing a reset on the Lowrance. On my computer at home I use EasyGPS program(a free one off the net) and store the way points by bringing the Garmin in and up loading the way points into EasyGPS thus if I lost the Garmin and the Lowrance I would still have those way points available for down load on to other GPS units.

That's my reasons and truthfully I would dread having to depend on just my graph's GPS but since most already do it that way I think I would eventually be able to pick it up even for an old grouch set in his ways.

[springhillwantabe]

nice pic recognized that one stickup don't look like they had a favorite color? wtg

[fishlessDan]

If the "grumpy old fart" in the red Lund starts invading my favorite waters, I'll have to look for a different lake, can't have a grumpy old fart boarding my tub to whip my tail

[LBM]

Yep I've certainly been thinking about checking your crappy old lake out that I usually don't catch that many crappie on. All with the hopes I might relive the thrills and risks of having my 10 ft crappie pole ripped out of my boat by those freight train hybrids at Clinton. Memories of one great day and besides they should even be bigger critters now than they were last year.