Nice Afternoon on lake brentwood

[fastfish]

A friend of mine from work invited me over to fish on lake brentwood in Sebring yesterday. There was a light wind and high 80's temp but water was pretty calm looking. This is a private,lightly fished lake .probably an old phosphate pit. We used my little 12 ft jon boat and first headed to a little stand of young water oaks at a grassy edge of the lake. Depth finder showed 10 ft at about 40 ft offshore..five as we got closer. He was using Berkeley wigglers and I was using nightcrawlers. He got a few hits on those but not many. I was casting close to the tree trunks in the water and got a hit almost every cast. Most fish were little bait stealers .I did catch about five worth keeping in the basket and those I released at the end of the day even. I didn't try any artificials but those probably would have worked fine There were a mix of shellcrackers(the biggest of the fish that were keepers) and bluegills. We only saw one bass strike the whole day. we were rained on for bit. Then we to explored the lake a little further. We found it to be 23 ft in the center over a very long stretch of lake. There are a few docks and high grass on some of the edges. Almost no pads. Bottom structure ..at least with my cheapy depth finder..was mostly flat. The finder was CONSTANTLY giving a fish beep and there were fish symbols everywhere but I'm still not sure how accurate this one is as to actual fish. We have no idea yet what the pattern of the fish is here . Any tips on figuring that out?? We just had a few hours in the evening to do it . We are planning on more trips especially a few morning trips..might be more bass then. I was fun exploring a new lake and at least we know some of what type of fish we're going to find and one area where they are actively biting. All in all..a relaxing day ..great company, nice scenery,a cool breeze..and we didn't get skunked!.
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[specktacklure]

Any tips on figuring that out??

If I had access to a lake like that I would longline troll with everything in the box, cover as much water as possible & try to get a better idea of the lake
& what is possible to be caught. With it being 23 ft in the center you could prolly slow done when trolling &/or pull double rigs. Sounds like a interesting place,
let us know if ya try it again.

[fishin813]

Excelant recap of experience on lake..........Probably a phosphate pit as mentioned,
high banks, trees around it and most are n a rectangler shape, vs fish bowl like most
lakes.
Shallow to deep section if quick relates to phosphate. Will find very little structure in
lake. Brian has best idea - long-line it to start and cover all the lake as much as possible - to get idea of various depths. Use as many different types of jigs, curely tails, sliders, zips............minnow tip everything.... work with 16 & 32nds.
Colors - black/chart - orange/yellow - yellow/black - blue/chart - copper/black
Purple/chart - vary your speed .8 - 1.0 zig-zag across lake allowing jigs to raise
and lower a different speeds.
Keep up posted on your adventures.

[fastfish]

Next trip we might go out in his boat which is much larger and he has a better depth finder and an I pilot trolling motor so long lining would be easier. We did drift fish a little with a spoon, nightcrawlers and a green /black//plastic grub...no bites on any of those...in 20 ft deep section Thanks for the suggestions. The water is very clear if that makes a big difference on approach. We did stay a good distance back from the trees to keep from spooking the fish too much. It is a more angular shaped lake than most and it does have a drop from bank to 5 ft almost immediately. The drop in center seems to be from about 8 ft to 15 then gets more gradual.. Supposedly is spring fed from a sister lake across Hwy 27. This I'm not sure of though. I'm clearly going to have to stock my tackle box better . Don't have many different colors. We'll also try crickets next time out to see what those do. I'm not really sure there are any crappie in it but plan to bring some minnows sometime.

[fishin813]

Going with minnows will solve some problems, invest in minow bucket that you can
put overboard from boat - not the best but will help get started or go with an
insulated cheap one 5 -6.00 and buy battery powered areator (8 -12.00) keep your
minnows cool (not cold) with frozen bottles tap water, sealed)

Minnow being used along with various jigs, curley tails will attract more predator
fish. - Weight of jigs and distance behind boat will control depth you are pulling
through. Clear water spring fed lakes are most difficult to fish when starting out.
Keep up your reports

[fastfish]

well..I discovered it's not brentwood after all..It's lake Byrd!! Found the name on the GPS in daughters car one day..Cool! We went out again Monday afternoon around 6:30. There was a storm front on the way but we got in three hours before being chased off the lake by it. I could not get any minnows because the bait place was closed on Mondays so Sunday evening we plan to go back with some and put them in his live well, He has an awesome boat! Much bigger than mine with programmable trolling motor and 70 horse Yamaha. It made it a LOT more comfortable..Plus he has a top on it. We started in the shallows at the trees where we caught bluegills and shell crackers before but no luck. I had a small bass break off my line but that was it there. We must have caught them bedding last month. We then tried lures and red wigglers at 20 ft deep mark. Fish were holding at 8-14 but after five passes we couldn't convince anything to bite. So we gave up that pursuit and just explored a little. He wanted to check out a cove at one end. It was 6 ft as we entered the cove ..then a sudden drop to 12!..then after a few seconds back up to 7. Apparently there is a deep hole there..That will be explored more next time out. We switched to bass baits. He used a rattle trap...I used a rubber frog. After about three cast he got a bass just under two lbs. He ended up with three..the biggest 3 lbs. There were hidden logs and brush in about 6 ft of water and we both fished those with rattletraps after he caught the first one. We also had to keep one step ahead of a 4 ft gator!! He chased both of ours lures from time to time..Much faster than I thought he'd be!

The weather finally caught up with us so we had o head in to shore.A lot of fun again and learnig more about the lake. We still don't know much about the crappie population but will keep trying!!!