Wiiiiindy Shelbyville 11-11&11

Had a two day guide trip and were lucky enough to get our limits both days! Yesterday we put in at whitley creek and fished up to just past point 6. We found that there was no spot where the fish were stacked up. Couple keepers at pretty much every spot. Some spots did hold a lot more fish than others though. We ran a lot of waypoints and finally got er' done. Best depth was 10-14ft. Shallow fish on piles (5-8ft) seemed to not be there as much for me, but I did see a boat go right to shallow root balls and laydowns and start to catchem nicely. They had a youngin with them and he was having a ball! We used 1/4oz heads, chartruese, with red/chart and white/chart tubes. We caught a lot of fish yesterday but overs were harder to come by. I thought it was windy yesterday untill...today...

Decided to put in at wilborn today and try a new area. I can honestly say I dont think that iv ever fished in wind as bad as today! It didnt matter how "protected" you should be from the wind, it still found you and hard too! We started out fishing stumps and laydowns and were catching some whoppers. Im talking 4-6" fish...haha. I decided to go looking. All I can say is the money spent on the ol 998 SI paid in full today! Every spot we ended up fishing today besides 1 I had never fished before. We found most piles we fished yielded 2-5 nice overs and one pile gave up about 12 overs and another gave up 8 overs. By far had the heaviest limit today that iv had all year and only 4 fish under the 11" mark for the overs. Depth we targeted was 8-12ft for the most part. Red and chartruese on 1/4oz head was by far the ticket today. The last area we fished today gave up my biggest of the year, a 14.25" stud that had to be at that 2lb mark. All in all it ended up being a great day with lots of good fish caught and some great clients to make it happen!

Yesterday:

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http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t..._11/photo6.jpg

Today:

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Thatta boy Tyler! We saw you cleaning fish yesterday at Whitley but didn't realize it was you. If it doesn't rain, we'll be out there the next few days. I don't know how you fished that today! I'll fish rain and snow, but absolutely hate wind!

Wow, that's dedication fishing in that kind of wind. Nice job. I fished Thursday from Whitley to Coalshaft and didn't do very well. Never been on that end of the lake and was having trouble finding brush piles, so we fished the ends of laydowns and managed our unders and a couple of overs.
I'm not very proficient yet with side imaging and have been doing some reading on it this weekend and have learned a couple of things I should be doing differently. But I do have a couple of questions if you wouldn't mind answering. Roughly how big are the brush piles in the lake? Can you describe how most of them appear on SI screen? I'm wondering now if some things I was seeing on Thursday were actually brush piles, but did not just jump out and look like brush, these were, for lack of a better way to describe them kind of round "fluffy" looking objects maybe 10 feet across. Thanks for any help.

Jeff- no worries now you know what I drive now! haha. Little windy tomorrow looks like but tuesday should be a beautiful day for you! Go get em!

Jethro- The brush piles in the lake vary greatly. Some people put in huge willows, some put in smaller locus trees or oak etc, and some put in porcupine balls and pvc/stakes. Pvs and stakes are really really hard to pick up on SI. Some brush piles are really hard to pick up with SI and may show up very very faint and really need to be looking to see them. I have mine set on 65ft width. As for the fluffy things, yes, more times than not most of them were brush piles. Sometimes you can see some branches coming from the brush piles but more times than not, for me, they show up as fluffy blobs. Stumps really show up nicely on the units. If your unsure about a brush pile or baitball etc. go ahead and mark it and go back and go over it again in 2d and SI and if its shad it will usually be gone or a different shape and if its brush you will be able to tell! 10ft across seems pretty big on the screen? But maybe you had went over some nice big willows! Take some screen shots and post em up, lots of people more than willing to help and they are fun to see!

If I think I see something on my si, I make a waypoint and run back over it with Downscan, you can always delete your previous waypoint as I was marking balls of baitfish in the beginning. I still have alot to learn on the si as well. Nice stringers again Birdy.

Well done on the fishing

Nice mess of slabs Tyler... I think I know were that big one come from. lol

Thanks for the help Birdman and SLCMACK, I appreciate it. I was fishing with a friend who doesn't fish much, is really impatient :bash(however, he LOVES the "eating crappie" part of fishing,lol) and I didn't feel like I could spend a lot of time searching. My GPS abilities are somewhat,....o.k...., reeeaaally limited as well. That Humminbird "doughnut" hole has me flustered to say the least. Do any of you guys use a handheld gps unit and do you find them easier to use compared to the HB's? I've got lots of work to do, but that's what makes it fun and rewarding when you can finally put it all together.

I know your frustration with the doughnut hole. My best advice i can give you is when your coming in on a way point get in line with it a ways from it that way your constantly moving and you can adjust left or right as your heading in. You can start out coming in zoomed out say 50ft, but as you get closer make sure you zoom to 20 and then 10ft, that way you can tell exactly where the mark is and if you're hitting it. I very rarely miss a waypoint anymore and if you do miss you can always know if it was left or right and toss the buoy and should be pretty close, especially with the 10ft zoom. You will figure it out, and it is VERY rewarding when you find a pile, go back mark it, and then drop down and catch em. Cool stuff.

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Originally Posted by birdman

I know your frustration with the doughnut hole. My best advice i can give you is when your coming in on a way point get in line with it a ways from it that way your constantly moving and you can adjust left or right as your heading in. You can start out coming in zoomed out say 50ft, but as you get closer make sure you zoom to 20 and then 10ft, that way you can tell exactly where the mark is and if you're hitting it. I very rarely miss a waypoint anymore and if you do miss you can always know if it was left or right and toss the buoy and should be pretty close, especially with the 10ft zoom. You will figure it out, and it is VERY rewarding when you find a pile, go back mark it, and then drop down and catch em. Cool stuff.

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Thanks again for your input Birdman. Hopefully this weather will hold out a couple more weeks and I can get out and practice some more.

I look to see if it is casting a shadow and that will tell how solid the structure is. Right arrow over to pile, once you think you are on the spot zoom max and then hit mark. That is the best way I have found to get the most accurate way pt.