Just my 2 cents worth

[scrat]

Ihave read a lot about crappie fishing on several web sites before andthis site has been the most helpful one that I have run across sofar. I have learned more in the pass few weeks here than all theothers. I us 2/0 Aberdeen gold hooks and minnows and most of the timeI have very few that are gut hooked. I don't have to buy minnow as wehave a catfish pond that has plenty of minnows. I throw out a handfulof catfish feed and run the catfish off before throwing a 4' 1/4"cast net and a lot of the time I will have about 4 or 5 dozen minnowsin one cast. My wife and I fish with 12 poles - 6 each B&M 10'cheap crappie poles @ $6 each sometimes with corks and sometimeswithout depending on how deep they are, most of the time they areonly 2'-4' deep in spring and we fish deeper in summer. We have nothad a lot of luck in the winter as it is harder to go in the coldweather the older you get and even harder to get my wife to go whenit is cold weather. We use the trolling motor trolling very slowly. When we locate them some of the times we will catch 2 or 3 eachon poles at one time. I will throw buoy marker out and troll overthat spot again, but we have noticed if we try to anchor there itwill run them off so we don't stop we just keep trolling. I havetried using all kinds of plastic baits but keep going back tominnows. I look at it this way why imitate a minnow when you can usethe real thing and if it ain't broke don't fix it. I have 2 fishfinders a hb 565 and a hb 717 but I have never been real good atseeing anything but structure and depth with either one. I can't seeanything like the pictures I see on this site. I know the moreexpensive ones are better but when you retire and live on a budgetyou use what you got. When you fish a lake that's 450 acres forseveral years you learn the depths anyway. I know severalpeople that use plastic baits that would not use nothing else and oneday I may get enough confidence to use them because it would becleaner, quicker and easier than minnows. I made my pole holder from4" PVC pipe and made the stands from 1/2" metal pipe waycheaper than the ones that are factory made. Our boat is a 1991tracker pro16 with a 25hp Johnson with minn kota foot controltrolling motor, it works fine for the lake we fish. It would not bebig enough for the big reservoirs and rivers that some people fish. My wife decides how many crappie we keep and what size as she is theone that cooks at our house, and sometimes we see people fishing fromthe bank and we offer them the fish we have caught so they can have agood fish fry. When we are through fishing for the day we have a 5gallon bucket that has been cut in half and the middle replaced withabout a foot of 1/4” hardware cloth and a lid that we sink out inthe lake beside a ( unused) old light pole to keep minnow alive, theywill sometimes live for days and even for a week or two there, so farno one has bothered it there. The thing about crappie fishing is thatanyone on any type of budget can fish. I know some of the bestexpensive equipment will help find fish but it won't make them bite.Well like I said I have learned a lot here and one of the mostimportant thing that I have learned is that fish are like any otheranimal that we hunt and catch, that we need to help protect them byadding fish habitat and structure. If only we were required to fixone fish habitat per year when we buy license's the fishing as awhole would be so much better. Oh well it is raining and cold outsideand there is not a lot to do so I just gave y'all my 2 cents worthand it didn't cost you nothing. Well my wife has dinner ready so Ihope everyone has a good safe fishing season this year and don'tforget put some habitat out.

[DockShootinJack]

Very good view point Scrat. The older I get the more apparent it becomes that we all have to do our part to keep our fisheries strong and productive for ourselves and future generations

[CrappiePappy]

Sounds like you've got it going on, Scrat !! And you're quite right about the fish not caring about anything but what you put in front of them to eat. If you're successful and happy with the equipment you have & the bait you use, and you enjoy doing it that way ... there's really no reason to change, unless you just want to challenge yourself.

Placing habitat can be illegal in some waters, so make sure it's OK before you do it.

And I would only add one thought to your comments ... take home more trash than you brought with you. That makes our waters cleaner, safer, and more productive.

... luck2ya, Scrat

... cp

[RiverSlabber]

Good post. Just have fun however you want to fish, and practice selective harvest.

CP, your right in your last comment. Im planning on keeping a few bags in my tackle box this year, some of the places on the river I fish are filthy.

[Fish2DMax]

Scrat,

You wrote 2 fishfinders a hb 565 and a hb 717 but I have never been real good at seeing anything but structure and depth with either one and I wanted to add to that thought. I'm old school and think of the fish/depth finder as just another tool. I just replaced an Eagle Ultra II - vintage 1986 version and it served me well on two boats. What I find is if you are looking for things beyond depth and structure you need to get in the advanced settings and tweak things like sensitivity. Bring it up until it is just almost too strong and then back off a little. Remember what you tweak so you can un-fix it later if need be. Bumping up the sensitivity on the old Eagle unit brought in shad and gave the brush a different personality - not anything like the down scan images some proudly post but it stands out. I don't know how else to describe it. It's just something to monkey with when you have a chance.

Last note: there apparently was an update as of 1/14/2010 for your hb717 - v4.760 (a Down scan related update). This may get you closer to the goal too if you aren't yet at v4.76 firmware.

[scrat]

Fish2DMax, thanks for the information about tweaking the fish finders. I have tried a few times to change the settings but I always go back to the default settings. I really need to just go out on the lake one day and leave my poles at home and learn to set and see what I really can do with my fish finders. It is hard to tweak and fish at the same time and it is hard not to fish when you have the chance to fish. A question I have is do humminbird transducers get weak over a certain time or do the fish finders. Seems like they were a lot stronger signals when they were newer. Both fish finders say they test ok when in the test mode. Thanks again for any information.