Help me locate more fish!!

[binfordw]

Well the rain is still coming down in buckets.

If I do decide to go tomorrow I'm certain I will be fishing mud.

Putting together all the great advice given here, I think I would cruise into creek channels on the west side of lake, and troll over the north bank looking for trees or items of interest. If I saw something that looked good, I might make some casts, otherwise I'd then pitch a couple jigs out with decent casts and troll back along the same route at .5-.7. I'd prolly step out/in on contour lines a bit and see what happens before zipping to the next creek channel and repeating.

Looks like its calling for rain again Friday now too, so we will see. Its either go fish, sit at home, or go to work lol. My wife has to work so I'd be fishing solo.

[funfishers]

Well the rain is still coming down in buckets.

If I do decide to go tomorrow I'm certain I will be fishing mud.

Putting together all the great advice given here, I think I would cruise into creek channels on the west side of lake, and troll over the north bank looking for trees or items of interest. If I saw something that looked good, I might make some casts, otherwise I'd then pitch a couple jigs out with decent casts and troll back along the same route at .5-.7. I'd prolly step out/in on contour lines a bit and see what happens before zipping to the next creek channel and repeating.

Looks like its calling for rain again Friday now too, so we will see. Its either go fish, sit at home, or go to work lol. My wife has to work so I'd be fishing solo.

I hear you man, I'm on vacation the next week and the fishing prospects don't look good enough to let me postpone some house hold chores.

[binfordw]

Well I went ahead and worked until about lunchtime today, but decided to hit the lake and see if I could do anything afterwards.


It was muddy, and up!

A quick pic before I jumped in





I hit the first big creek channel on the west side of lake, and focused on the north shore. I made a pass at idle and had a look, I saw trees, no real bait balls though. It gave me a chance to try out the navigation stuff a bit more with the Ulterra. I threw 3 rods out with jigs/plastics and cruised along the bank at about .6 mph


I wound up going all the way back into the creek channel. Water temps went from 43 to almost 49. It was real muddy.


There was lots of trees, I snagged a few times and lost a couple jigs.



I crossed over a couple spots that looked good, I couldn't tell what it was exactly but it looked like piles of fish to me. I marked them and went back and vertical jigged for a bit but had no luck.

The new Ulterra was awesome- again. It allowed me to cruise at .5-.8mph and pay little attention to boat control. I was a little confused with the tracks and navigation options, I need to read up a little more. It was a bit hard to use follow contour due to the trees.

I tried shorter casts out on my way back. I had no idea really how deep the jigs were, but since I had snagged a few times I assumed they were probably close to bottom or on it. I was overall happy with how easy it seemed, and can see myself doing it again as the weather gets better. ( My wife might even enjoy it more as I can use lighter rods with the jigs- = a little more fun catching the fish instead of just reeling them in) but pulling cranks is going to be so easy with this setup!






The ramp was busy as I left at 5:30 pm, I imagine the dam will be full of boats tonight tossing cranks and jerkbaits for walleye.

[cevans]

Glad you got out and nice boat. First, from the pics, I would get my rod tips down either level with the water or a foot or 1.5 ft from the surface of the water to keep as much line in the water. Is there any better water? Not as muddy? Did you graph any fish? If not, move and try and find some. Your lake is 5000 acres and your going to have to find them. With all the rain we have had and it just quit about 3-4 am this morning not sure of anything as my fishing plans for today were fubar’ed by my office and never made it out to compare but over here in south western Indiana after 5 inches of rain, I figured I didn’t miss out on much by not getting to go. I really think everything right now is against us and it’s quite a challenge right now so keep seaching and see if you can try maybe a slower speed also of 0.3 to 0.4 as well as mix the speed up. I figure the fish might be hitting baits pretty light and not super aggressive. Rain is forcast almost for the next 5 days again hit and miss also. Keep the faith as it will eventually get better with the weather not so much against us. I thought I might go in the morning before it rains but heck, tomorrow 15-20 winds gusting to 30 is what the weather man said tonite so will decide in the morning.

[binfordw]

Thanks for the info!

there was some cleaner water, but very little. The mouth of the first creek channel was still clear for a few hundred yards up to where it curved around a point. That's where I started. I saw it had submerged trees and lots of stuff, but I saw no baitfish really. I would not be able to absolutely say fish or no fish. I made a total of 5 passes here before cruising on back farther where it got muddy.

i think it will help me a bit to ask for 2D screens of crappie. Like- returns that would make someone fish that area.

im also curious about the size of lake and fish movement. Surely crappie would not travel miles if they can find what they need in a certain area right?

i wondered this this due to the walleye spawn on the dam. If they are there at night, wouldn't they be close during the day? How far would they travel I wonder.

[cevans]

In the spring, I have seen the fish in the upper shallows of Patoka move as much as a mile down into deep water from spring run offs. I think a lot of it is because of the farmers spreading manure and chemicals on the fields leaching into the rivers and creeks and changing the ph of the water and changing oxygen content. Turkey poo has alot of amoninia in it for example and same way with hog poo. Walleye at the dam will suspend and go deep until the light levels of the daytime change. Crappie normally won’t move too far. With all these fronts, every other day blasting thru, it’s having quite the effect on fishing. These below normal cold fronts blasting down are effecting the fish. I had coffee with a retired local that fishes Dogwood and West Boggs almost every day. He has yet to catch a Crappie on Dogwood and he has fished it quite a bit. Had one day 2 weeks ago, he nailed 20 spider rigging minnows on Boggs and that is it, He has managed one, mabye 2 or 3 keepers all the other times he has fished and for now has just quit till weather changes. Heck, they are calling for 60 today with up to 30 mph gusts and right now 10 mph winds and 1-3 inches of snow for tomorrow evening with another below normal cold front moving in. Everything is muddy and if you check the 15 day forcast, same weather pattern. It’s not good for Indiana fishing and the weather is making it quite the challenge. I didn’t go this morning as heavy frost, 10 mph wind but going to run and check water in 3 lakes this morning to see what it looks like and will take a portable temp gage with me. Just riding out the weather as sooner or later it will break. You need to find fish with electronics and then try and fish them is my best guess and a guess is all it is. Good luck.

one other thing, Brookville is a cold water deep lake. It’s why you have the best walleye fishery for a lake in the state. I think you need to fish a winter time pattern as I don’t know for sure, but guessing the crappies May have not move up into the shallows yet. Just because you have mid 40 water surface temp, 3 ft or deeper it’s going to get a lot colder. Sure water mixes, but it still can be layered. Just a thought.

[binfordw]

Wife and I did a quick repeat today, same creek channel. I ran 4 poles with 2 jigs each , 1/32's and/or 1/16's, spaced about 3-4 feet apart. We donated atleast half a dozen jigs to the stumps this time. I eventually started just tying a single 1/8th oz road runner on lol.

Got no where, and the temps cooled the farther we got from the mouth of the creek channel, so we turned back to the entrance.

I saw really good markings on 2D at the wind blown bank just off the entrance of the creek channel, so I made a few passes dragging jigs. I tried to adjust line out to ensure I was covering as much depth as possible. I went back and spot-locked and jigged a blade bait, hoping to pick something up to verify what I was seeing, but no bites.


Am I seeing fish? Or is this trees/stumps and its only catching a thin part of them due to being in 200hz mode? I had switched to 200 to try to cut out alot of the returns/clutter

[CrappiePappy]

I would have interpreted those 2d marks as fish !! And considering you were going 5mph & using the narrow cone 200mHz setting, you probably missed seeing some fish that were outside of the cone ... and your speed may be the reason for the flattened arches.

At 48deg surface temps .... 15ft down it was probably a bit colder, so you may have been using baits too big or moving too fast.

[cevans]

My best guess would maybe be, fish on bottom might be walleye, cats, bass even, and large arches at 15 ft could be walleye bass or crappies with little specks on screen being baitfish. No way to really tell till you snag some and then learn by seeing and catching in relation to size of arches, your location, and season your graphing and seeing what is on your screen. We can surmise anything. Just my 2 cents

[cevans]

My best guess would maybe be, fish on bottom might be walleye, cats, bass even, and large arches at 15 ft could be walleye bass or crappies with little specks on screen being baitfish. No way to really tell till you snag some and then learn by seeing and catching in relation to size of arches, your location, and season your graphing and seeing what is on your screen. We can surmise anything. Just my 2 cents and like above post, slow down a dash. Yesterday, they opened the dam to 5000 cfs and leveled it at 4000 cfs today. It might unsettle your fish till water stabilizes as it’s presently dropping 0.7 to 1.0 ft right now.