When fishing brush piles do you actually have to mark fish on your locator before you set up or do you use a run and gun technique covering as many piles as possible until you find fish?
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When fishing brush piles do you actually have to mark fish on your locator before you set up or do you use a run and gun technique covering as many piles as possible until you find fish?
OlJim, I'll fish the pile regardless. There have been times we couldn't see any fish over or around the brush, but caught the fire out of them. Sometimes those crappie will bury into that brush. I know many fishermen who fish brush only when they see fish on the finder, but I fish them regardless.
I agree with guru on this one. I fish every pile, but not for long. My experience has been if there are active fish around or in a pile they will bite immediately. Now if I figure out the fish want the pile to be in a certain depth of water, I won't waste my time trying piles in other depths. Right now on Oologah is a prime example of this. If you are fishing piles deeper than 15 fow you are wasting your time. This could change with all the water coming in but it has been that way for the last 3 weeks. In short if you catch fish in or over a pile, fish every pile in that depth of water you can find. Whether the graph shows fish or not doesn't matter, just keep moving until you find the right depth.
Odie
I can't wait to get a boat...all this talk of brush piles and dipping timber is making me crazy. :D
The only way I know that a fish is on a brush pile is to fish the brush pile. I can not interpret my sonar, Lowrance 520C, well enough to know if fish are present or not. If your sonar is set on fish I.D. how do you know it is a fish and not the end of a limb from the brush pile? I have played with the settings, sensitivity, noise suppression, you name it. I would love to go fishing with somebody that has the knowledge to teach me how to read my sonar and see fish on brush piles. Now if you have an extra HB with SI and down scan or a Lowrance HD unit with SS and DS, send it my way. Those pictures are incredible, just ask Crappie George.
I listened to Melvin Underhill, longtime guide @ Dutchess Creek /Porum Landing for years and he fished brushpiles every day. He fished them all in progression with only minnows, and stated those crappie are lazy! and wont travel over 30" or less to take a bait. I callenged him to an 8 hour jigs vs. minnows and it was a draw....go figure? He was a great crappie fisherman and I learned alot from him. He said the agressive / active fish hit first and after they slow you might as well move on to the next pile;....good advice.
What area do u fish guru ?Quote:
Originally Posted by crappieguru
Does anybody know a link I can go to,to find where brush piles are on Eufaula? I have found one for Ooolagah but not Eufaula.
Run and Gun is the way I do it most of the time. We call it cherry pickin. but there are time when slow is the name of the game. Go Figure????? in the summer if you get 3-4 fish off a brush pile that s good move on...
I don't even look for fish on my locator, I use it strictly to find structure. Maybe one of these days I'll learn how to locate and identify fish with it.
hey coyote, just read your post about trying to read your electronics! I have some instructional dvd's on how to read and understand your lowrance. if your interested in them just send me a messege or email me [email protected] really worth the money because you cant appreciate the lowrance unless you know what it can do for you.
yeah coyote,, they're werth the money...
this is a massive log jam at BLUFF,
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t...S/100_4762.jpg
as many fish as I boat my screen cant seem ta stay clean,, excuse the dirty screen...
Pretty interesting topic. From what I see on the water people fish brush piles in a bunch of different methods. I'll have to agree with all the comments the fellas made, there are some really good fishermen in this bunch. I'd add a suggestion to have a little more patience with fishing a promising pile. I've caught a bunch on piles where we didn't see very many fish, and piles where we saw a bunch. I've also seen many times where the fish didn't bite at daylight or 30 minutes later, but bit like crazy an hour later. I think the methods that people use to fish the piles is probably just as important or more important than learning to stand your ground, or run and gun. Bottom line, trust your gut instinct. It also doesn't hurt to put your own brush piles in. It sure is sweet when you load the boat on your own pile.
Whisperer, yer absolutely rite there, I pull fish off of massive logjams or brushpiles eether one and they dont show up on my graph,, when the baro is high and they're sucked up close ta the timber, but they're still there...........
crappiedentist, checkout the screen protector's for your humminbird on ebay! i have one on mine and they are a must have for equipment like that. they really help with fingerprints spots and scratch proof! thier bout 20.00 bucks check them out. just bring up humminbird on ebay and you should find them! good luck
It is strange how sometimes your FF will show lots of fish and you cannot get a bite and then other times the FF shows no fish and you catch a limit. :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by CRAPPIEDENTIST
I will fish the brushpile a few minutes regardless of seeing fish on the depthfinder. I really like to see bait balls close to the brushpiles but I catch some when they aren't around too.
My favorite technique is as soon as I can reach my shallow water brushpiles, (8 to 10 FOW), I like to pitch my jig up past the pile and let it pendulum back towards the boat. I normally catch the biggest crappie that I'm going to catch there doing this.
Todd Huckabee says that anything shallower than 10 feet he likes to pitch a jig and cork to so he can stay back and not spook fish.
I still like to get up there and jig but it doesn't take long to spook the bigger ones off and all you catch are the dinks.
If you can catch a few nice fish in, or around brush, chances are if it slows down, they're not too far off and they tend to regroup after awhile. If you don't catch any, move on until you find one that's producing.