Thread: Welcome Evanrude

Thank you all for the welcome!! Really looking forward to hopefully learning a lot more about catching crappie and beyond!

Guess I could throw out a little about myself lol. I grew up on the Sabine River (below the dam) and Toledo bend reservoir from Louisiana. I spent most of my youth, until college, right smack down on the sandbars of the Sabine. It was a blessing for sure but gave me a diluted view of fishing. I didnt start fishing lakes until I was older in my teens, and outside of following my Pawpaw around doing what he did and catching a few, I have never really produced fish out of a lake. As an adult I moved onto a lake near by Toledo (Vernon Lake) and I have fished it to death it feels like. Until literally this last weekend I have never left that lake with fish to clean. Finally after reading facebook posts, and some of the posts on this forum, we (my girlfriend and myself) managed to catch 9 white perch in about 4 hours of fishing. I tried to take my two boys back yesterday morning and didnt catch a thing. I want them to learn fishing in a healthier way than I did but also I want them to catch fish and not get burned out before they even grow to love it. I mentioned growing up right on the river gave me a diluted view of fishing so let me explain that. Fishing the Sabine is relatively easy. Go out early morning, throw either a crank bait, torpedo, or smaller size spinner bait, and you are going to catch fish. Now for me this seems to only be when they are not generating from the hydro electric dam on Toledo. When they are not generating the river is shallow, and calm. I never really fished it when it was generating and the few times I did I never caught anything. So how did this give me a diluted view? Well its the same any time I go out. Yes some days are better than others, but very very rarely will I go and not bring a fish to the boat. I cant really take my boys there anymore like I used to be able to go when I was growing up. Now the generation schedule is crazy different, the weather is MUCH different which is one of the reasons the generation schedule has changed, and when they are not generating the river is so shallow you almost have to have a surface drive to move around. From flooding and generating the river has widened a lot over the last 20-30 years, making the overall depth much more shallow and sandy. So I came here looking for tips, found one that produced for the first time on my home lake (vernon lake), and now have a lot of faith in this community. I would like to be able to grow enough knowledge to put my children on some fish and get them as addicted as I used to be go to the river, except I want them to be able to go anywhere when they are older and have a good enough knowledge of fishing to actually know how to look for fish and catch some fish. I feel like Im learning how to fish all over again. Learning new colors for baits, and water color and temperature, depth changes, and so much more are all newer things to me. I always knew that it meant something, but I never KNEW how much that meant if that makes sense lol. I want my children not to have that same few as I did where three baits could catch anywhere, because that isnt really the case.

If you could keep up with my rambling there, Im here to learn and share anything I might accidentally stumble on to catch fish. One thing Im good at is throwing my entire tackle box on a trip because I dont mind sitting out in my boat for 12 hours chunking and winding. Thank you all for what Ive read so far, like I mentioned earlier, this forum has already help me actually have some fish to clean for once in a long time. It was a nice breathe of fresh air and it was enough to get my kids interested in going for more than just a boat ride!! Good luck to everyone out there!