Thread: Where would you try on a new lake?

We have been catching most of ours at night. Were fishing in 36' of water. The fish are down 10-12'. I guess it has a lot to do with the lakes turning over this time of year. I'm sure somebody on here can give you some better information, I'm just telling you what has been working for us.

Larry made a good point, every lake tends to fish different

From my past experiences i tend to find crappie schooling up out in deeper water in the fall, its a fun time of year to fish

Jim-are they suspended? Or by the weeds? Thanks

FYI the lakes I am looking at are 30' maximum depth and I assume out at those depths they are devoid of any cover/structure. Like I said, I have never found crappies suspended way up out over very deep water. I may be missing something? My fishinder is an el cheapo portable with big pixels. It's OK to see depth with but locating fish or especially schools of minnows is pretty much beyond what it can do.

One trick (if you have not done it already) is to turn fish I.D off. then you only see the arc of the fish. Might help you over deep water. Another tip to find them is to use your trolling motor (or the wind) and run 3 poles at getting depths (spider rig). I like to use different jig sizes, colors. and bait. I also like to run "doubles" on each rod. Hook a fish, throw a bouy. Ask Yankee doodler as he is better than I at this as he employs it a lot. Locate One and more will come.

What lakes you looking at? Someone might be able to give you a starting point. If not, attest we can look in the book and see if we can help. Or go to the lake and crowd your boat

You need to be able to mark the fish.This is not a great picture, but it does show the fish. They are suspended up in the water column.

I'd consider longline trolling ... as a search tool, if not a primary method. Give them a mixed bag of tubes, curly tails, Roadrunners, etc.

Whenever I read anything about "how to approach fishing a new lake" ... they always tend to say two things, over & over again, regardless of who's being quoted in the article :

1) Find areas of the lake that are similar to lakes you know well, and fish them the same way you would your well known waters. (sort of the "a Crappie is a Crappie, regardless of where it lives" attitude)

2) Don't try & fish the "whole" lake. Section it off & work over each section thoroughly ... given the most likely area of the lake that the fish will be in, according to season &/or current conditions.

I would only add one other idea, since it's worked well for me on unfamiliar waters .... what I call the "when in Rome" method. That is ... fish where & like the locals do !! Talk to people on the water, at the ramps, at the fish cleaning stations & marinas, at the bait shops, etc. I usually ask them "what's the best you've ever done at this lake ?" Once I get the conversation going in that mode, I can congratulate them on their catch ... stroking their ego a bit ... and that usually leads to the finer details of "how/when/where/on what/how deep/etc". Not always, but often enough. It's what got me started shooting docks, back when I was mostly casting tube jigs or tightlining minnows. Had I not done so ... I'd have missed out on years of catching some really nice fish.

... cp