Underwater screenshots from Harris

I wanted to share some screenshots from the past two days fishing on Harris. If you include the perch, there were a lot of fish caught on this lake. From looking at these screenshots, you will see that the more baitfish, the more and larger fish there will be up the food chain. We are fortunate in this area to have some lakes with high nitrogen levels that produce lots of plankton which feeds millions of shad. I've also included some shots that will help you see where the fish are located right now.

I thought these three were quite interesting. As you can tell from the clock, they were taken within a seven minute time span. This is the same area JC and Joey caught so many of their perch along with a number of us catching a lot of crappie. The screenshots clearly show you were you had better be fishing. You can see from the third shot that the back on the boat has gotten to far up on this point and no fish.

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Not all of the fish were deep, as evidenced by this shot. Note the time on the second shot--the morning fish were much more shallow and they moved deeper as the sun came up.

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I'll post several feeding and resting fish. It's obvious the predators are at work on the schools of shad. It is amazing to me how many fish are down below these schools on the bottom. I think these are "resting" fish that have already fed. Getting these fish to bite was not always easy. I think some of the more successful teams from yesterday were fishing for the active fish suspended higher in the water column.

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Here are some miscellaneous shots that I hope will help you catch more fish. Understanding how they pattern themselves in the Winter can help you find them.

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Amazing info, thanks for sharing

Great Shots Dennis! Sure was a great day!!!

Great presentation, and very informative "professor Jordan Limit"
Very clear explanation of where the fish are in the water column.

Thank you!

Good stuff!! Thanks for taking the time to post and explain.

Am I weird? I'd rather look at those fish finder pics than porn.

I'm fortunate to be able to fish on Charle's boat and be able to use all the technology he has. I bring the screenshots home and study them on my computer. The kindness that Charles has shown to me, I in turn like to pass it on and share with others. The crappie follow basic patterns over the years and once you learn this, you can go after them consistently. My goal is that a person with just a very basic depthfinder can look at these images and develop a plan to successfully catch fish.

There is one image I left out and that is creating a track to follow with the I-Pilot Link. We have the ability to create a track and then follow it. The GPS unit in the I-Pilot will control the boat and I have cruise control as well to set the speed. Having looked at my other images, you should be able to understand why I chose this route to fish. It worked on Friday while pre-fishing, but there were too many boats around for me to use this on Saturday. There is a light gray line connecting the four waypoints. One interesting thing is there was a light wind and you can see by the boat symbol that it has blown the back-end off the track. The front with the GPS trolling motor is where it should be, but going quite slow with a cross wind blew the back off-course. I've found I can't always use the follow-the-track feature with a crosswind--much better going into the wind.

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Really cool stuff. I love how that side finder view shows you a ghost image of the fish.

Thanks so much for posting and explaining, my captain and I are just learning to use and read his new unit. Newbie question, are the perch and crappie schools hanging tight or cruising along with the shad?

I think the crappie and perch are mixed. We caught a number of our fish on the bottom and up a couple of turns. If you read Kevin (Gobbler)'s comments on the other post, he was catching his about 2'-6' above the bottom. I would suggest that while in the parking lot, put your rod in the holder and let it down to the ground. Reel up one turn on the handle and then measure the distance. Write this down or keep in it your memory because it will help while on the water. Watch your depthfinder and put the bait about six inches above what seems to be the preferred depth that the most are located. Hope this helps.

Any kind of detailed info is gonna help me. Didn't word my question clear enough, meaning if you marked a large school of fish could you anchor and fish that school or are they cruising just off the bottom following under the shad? My capt. prefers to cast jigs whenever possible.

I hit Spot Lock a few times, but did not seem to do any good. The best for me was easing around the flats that are holding fish at .3 mph.

gotcha

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Originally Posted by reeldude

Any kind of detailed info is gonna help me. Didn't word my question clear enough, meaning if you marked a large school of fish could you anchor and fish that school or are they cruising just off the bottom following under the shad? My capt. prefers to cast jigs whenever possible.

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I'd like to hear from the pros on this, but when I went on Sunday I threw out the anchor cuz I was tired of fighting the wind and I had to manage some tangled lines. After anchoring I sat in one spot and fished for a while and it looked like stuff was swimming under my fish finder it was always changing even though I wasn't moving. I unusually drift around using trolling motor or go with the breeze...

We saw allot of the same thing on the FF pictures in the first post. We drifted and i-Pilot anchored the whole time we were there. 30' to 10' zigzagging our way around. We slayed the perch at all depths. Hung a handful of crappie. We need to figure out how to get those deeper ones to bite.

mike

Great details!

That pattern is custom made for jigging a Flexit or similar spoon off the bottom for perch and anything else down there. We love to find them with the DF and minnows like you showed and them drop spoons among them. I have caught 2 large blue cats(18 and 28 pounds) and numerous stripers on the Flexit while catching perch. Always a surprise when you expecting to catch a 1/2 t0 1 Lb. perch and something about takes the rod out of your hands.
Do y'all use the Flexit spoons?? Here is one for reference only: Berry's Flex-It Spoon - Striper Tackle

I saw a TV program made on nearby Jordan Lake using some kind of spoons in the winter. They would let them flutter down to the bottom much like dying shad. I've never tried it, but there is a guide on the lake that fishes this way and it should work on Harris as well.

JL kastmasters are good for this