Rend Lake

[brianlg]

Gave Rend a try yesterday. Ended up with 16 keepers, half were over 10". Had quite a few throw backs. Caught most of them on about 6 or 7 brush piles. Fished over 30 spots that have produced in the past and not much. Didn't seem like there were that many boats on the lake for as nice a day as it was. Would have liked to caught a few more but still a great day on the lake in Feb with a few buddies.

[Adamfigge3]

Do you generally hit the posted gps sites or spots that you had found on your own? I'm still learning to use my depth finder but when I tried a few of the posted habitats last fall they didn't produce much and the fish finder didn't show much structure in the marked positions.

[brianlg]

Adamfigge3,

Most of the spots we fished were brush that I marked over the years with my side imaging. I have looked at some of the GPS points you can get. Some of those don't appear to have much left to the drops. Either those are deteriorated or drug apart with boat anchors.

[Tracker22]

Rumor has it that some guys go out with pontoon boats and grappling hooks and move them. I don't know if it's true, but...

[Adamfigge3]

Well that would make sense why I couldn't locate anything at some of the gps coordinates. I've only fished rend one weekend and it was super windy so I wasn't able to get to the majority of the lake to check things out and start finding some decent spots. Should be able to fish it more this year.

[crazycrappie]

I can never find much at there gps drop points on Rend either. But I only have down imaging so it's a little harder to locate stuff. I am thinking about upgrading to side imagining. Do you guys find it a lot easier to find fish with side?

[Adamfigge3]

I went from not having anything but a depth finder that barely worked on my boat and saved up and bought a humminbird 998 last year. I really don't even barely know how to use the thing, haha. I haven't fished a whole lot with it but I'm sure there are some setting adjustments that would help me a lot. I don't really see fish on my down or side imaging but I can locate structure with it, never have seen anything as detailed as some of the screen shots some guys post though.

[birdman]

I personally can see fish on my side scan very well as well as structure. If you go directly over the structure on side scan it can almost be used as down scan as well. I use side scan 95% of the time. Just my 2 cents

[crazycrappie]

Thanks Birdman! I'm thinking its time to make that upgrade to side. After years of just catfish and bass fishing I really got the crappie fever last year. Ready to get out there.

[Adamfigge3]

Like I said, my unit could probably use some setting changes, as well as someone that knows how to use it running it. They may be on there and I just don't know exactly what I'm looking at.