Beggin for help, lake James/Rhodiss

[Dogfish804]

Hello again all. I made a last ditch effort for help last week about 1 hour b4 leaving for the lake, beggin for some tips. Didn't give much notice & got no help b4 i had to go, although that was expected on such short notice. I did get a couple posts after getting back . Anyhow I just got word we're going out again tomorrow (Sat Feb 7th). I wish we could meet you all @ the social, but Jordan is a bit too far for us this weekend.

Anyhow here's our story. My brother just got a boat a couple months ago, havent' caught a fish from it yet. His son, my nephew is 16 & will be w/ us tomorrow. We'll be going to lake James or maybe Rhodhiss ( I may have him talked into the extra miles since from what I have heard on here it seems it's better crappie fishin). So i'm not sure which lake yet, but I can say we prolly won't be out early, my bro has some stuff he needs to take to the landfill first . so we may be on the lake by 11 AM maybe.

My bro has never been a fisherman really. My nephew would totally love fishing if we could just put him on some fish, lol. That makes me feel terrible I'm afraid he will give up on fishing alltogether if he doesn't have a 'lil more luck. Myself, I'm mostly a trout fisherman in the mtn streams here in WNC. I did a good bit of bass fishing in my teens, but I've never been a crappie fisherman. Last time I caught crappie was when I was prolly about 6 or 7 on a boat fishing w/ my grandpa @ lake West Point in GA.

Ok, sorry bout that. Now to the point. We will be @ Lake James or Rhodhiss. I need any kind of help/tips you can give. If you could tell me what to fish what would you say? I have some 1/16 jigheads & some 3/8 jigheads (that were out of my saltwater box) but nothing in between! what size jigheads should I get/use?

After I know what size jighead, what size grub/tube should i use? 2"..... 3"...... more? less? plz tell me what ya think

Color??? I know color is something to be expirimented with day to day, but if there is a certain color combo that you think is hot for one of these lakes i'd love to hear it.

Any hotspots for either of these lakes? I've heard big island & moose lodge for lake james, we went by those places last time w/ not much luck. But I'm not sure about where exactly the "moose lodge" is. I see it on the map but when we went to that spot we saw nothing that looked like a large "lodge". mostly just saw some docks w/ alot of pontoon boats. When they say the moose lodge do they mean fishing those docks where the pontoon boats are? Can anyone tell me more specifically where we should be fishing?

The other thing I should say is that we are using a pretty primitave depth finder. It does not have a temp sensor, so we have no idea of water temp. On top of it being primitive we are not real experienced w/ reading it. This is the first boat my bro has owned & I've never owned a boat, so were just getting used to it. But the 2 times i've been out w/ it I haven't had alot of luck finding fish or stucture on it. but then we haven't spent alot of time looking, mostly we've fished trees we could see laying down in the water near the bank.

I realize we should prolly be looking for structure & fish in deeper water on the sonar & fishing that. Anyway like i said the sonar is fairly ancient, so it may be hard to find fish on there. It doesn't even show fish as fish, they are a square black pixel.... err i think that's a fish anyway.

Oh, 1 more thing. Do you think we would have better luck w/ minnows over jigs? And this is a stupid question, but how do you fish the minnows? do you just use a split-shot sinker & hook them thru the lips? or do you hook them w/ a jighead? & if you hook them w/ a jighead do you run the hook thru them so it would kill them but they're head would be up close to the head of the jig? or how?

So sorry for the long post all, but I just wanted to give you an idea of how little I know, how badly I want to know & how desperate I am to know! =D

I would love so much for us to be able to find some fish tomorrow. especially if my nephew could pull in a few, cause I know if he did he will be hooked for sure. I really don't mind getting skunked, i'll still love fishing @ the end of the day. but a 16 year old, well... you know what I mean, I really want him to have a kick ass day b4 he makes up his mind that this isn't any fun.

[ncnat]

I'll try to help you. I have never fished either lake though. Forget the jigs for now, we'll get to those later. Rig your rods with slip floats, 1/16 to 1/8 of weights and #2 to 1/0 hook. Hook your minnow thru the eye socket. When your going across the lake look at your depth finder and see at what depth most of the black dots are at. That is the depth you need to start looking for brush and drop offs. Do not worry about actually seeing fish on the depth finder since they are going to be on the bottom or tight to brush. Set your slip floats to just above the brush. If your not getting hung once in while your not going to catch fish consistantly. If the lake has docks find some that have at least 15 feet of water on the end of it and fish around them. If there are lights on the docks then there is probably brush around it. Another good place to start, if your lake has any, is around the fish attractors that NCWRC has put out. Be patient, this is a tough of time of year to fish as are those 2 lakes. It may be worth your while to drive over to High Rock where we can get you, your bro and nephew on some fish before anybody gives up on crappie fishing. I hope this helps you some.

[Dogfish804]

Thx a ton NCNat, i'll let ya know if we do any better today =D

[Dogfish804]

Well, sad to say we didn't do any better today no fish again. We went to James again. I'm guessing we got on the lake about 11:00 or 11:30. Are we killing ourselves by doing that? Do we really need to get out @ the crack o' dawn?

I'm prolly just making excuses for myself that I shouldn't be but I'm really feeling like the dinosaur of a depthfinder we're using isn't helping matters any either... err not helping much i should say. I hear ppl say find brush piles in w/ fish on 'em or find brush piles near a drop off @ the right depth. Well, problem is I'm really feeling like this old depth finder is not capable of ID'ing fish. But even when i do see a stray dot that's not connected to the bottom I question if it's a fish or not. & as for finding structure we have trouble just finding ANY bottom structure so when we did find any we stopped & fished it if it was anywhere between 40 & 10 feet. Cause since we couldn't spot fish we didn't really know where they were or if we were wasting our time on that spot.

Anyhow I would love to upgrade the depth finder to something made in the last 20 years (this model may be younger than 20 but if so it can't be by much, i'm guessing it was prolly new w/ the boat which is an 85, lol). I should be getting a little extra money sometime this spring & I was looking @ some fish finders. One that I kinda like, that would still fit into my cheap budget was a Humminbird Pirhana 240 (transom mount). That's how the boat is set-up now, trolling moter is on the stern as well as the transducer for the depth finder. I saw that particular model has been discontinued, anyone know why? was it flawed or just being phased out for newer & better stuff?

[skeeterguy]

hey dog, I bought a Humminbird fishfinder 565 this summer & I love it. Great picture, shows brush, structure, & fish very well. The best part is you dont need a loan to buy it. Should be able to find one for around $200.00.
I've got three kids that love to fish, so I've usually got a boat full, but, I'll leave some home & be glad to take you & the teenager on a trip to James or Rhodhiss. Nat is correct, this is a tough time for fishing either lake due to the cold water. I was on Rhodhiss sat from 12 till 3:30 & caught one crappie.
Water temp was 36-37 degrees on upper end, 39-40 degrees on lower end.
I'm sure James was probably slightly cooler. Probably had 10 other boats around us at all times, & I never saw anyone catch a fish. don't get discouraged, it was lockjaw saturday. A 60 degree day is no immediate help when the previous 3 mornings were 14,11, & 10 degrees.
With minnows, I'm fairly confident I can put you on some brushpiles & fish at Rhodhiss. Lake James is tougher, but we should be able to find a few there if you prefer to meet there. give me a call, 584-1122 & I'll help all I can.

[ncnat]

I have used the Piranhas and for the money are not a bad buy. I would spend a little more and get a better unit. I very seldom look for fish with the finder. If I can find the structure and cover, then the fish are there or very near. Take skeeter up on his offer, it will cut your learing curve way down to go with somebody that is already experienced fishing those waters.

[stratosguy]

Lake james is nicknamed the dead sea for a reason. Rhodhiss is where I spend most of my time. 1/32 jig heads use bobby garland or gene larew same company colors are butterbelly or bluegrass and use chartreuse and dye just the tails. Throw in brush at the mouths of coves and jig up and down as they fall. You will catch fish!