West Boggs Scum

Anybody fishing West Boggs cannot go without noticing the green stringy frog type scum covering the entire bottom of the lake and floating in it. Past couple of years it’s been taking the lake over And yesterday was as thick as I have ever seen it. When it breaks off and floats in clump it’s a absolute mess to get off your lines and baits as well as if you stuck the small particles up in your engine and it dries your going to create issues with your motor unless you flush it out with clean water. They had to shut the swimming beach down a lot earlier than most lakes due to the algae blooms and last month supposedly the Conservancy called a meeting to discuss farm runoff and water quality issues. You will not find that scum anywhere else as thick as it is. Be careful and watch your cuts if you get one. Several kids ended up in the hospital from swimming in the summer that you won’t read about. Check your fish as you clean them especially as it gets warmer. Just a FYI.

Just found out they are going to spend 27000.00 and spray,the north bay and the west bay culvert pipe entrance to try and get rid of the scum. Don’t know when that is going to happen but to me, they need to attack the problem of the runoff from all the turkey, hog and cattle farms that dump into the lake. Time will tell.

did that stuff get you BOGGed down?? :Rofl

Didn't they used to have a small subimpoundment or settling pond in the upper end of the lake at one time?

They may have had a settling pond at one time,,don’t know. But the Amish have just about bought up all the farms around for several counties around and on the north side there’s 24 of the largest turkey barns you will ever see. West side for miles is untold farms that drains into it for miles. That is their problem and it’s quite the delima. Next few years will be the challenge for them as I see they could loose the lake and spraying is a minor temporary fix. One fact is the flowage into the lake is minor except when you have a hard rain and when you have a hard rain, the wash off from all the Amish farms is butt ugly. The lake has become a big settling pond.

Sounds like this lake just needs shut down. Then get these farms shutdown for run off. This is illegal. Maybe after these farms get under control they can open the lake back up for the amish to fish.

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The scum was bad early on WB. Dogwood is getting bad too. Stumps and weed lines covered. Spend much time cleaning off jigs. Last time I had a few crappie from WB they were not good, had a bad taste. That was a few years ago, don't keep them now from there. Been seeing new comers to DW running big boats too fast. Stumps are hard to see with water being high. The channel markers have drifted off line as well. Hope you get electronics corrected soon.

I

You only run too fast on Dogwood until it costs you money in repairs. Nothing like hitting an unseen stump in 30 foot of water. Unless management has changed moving the channel markers back into place is not a priority.

You can't get going that fast when you have 10 amish in one boat.

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My electronics is fixed as got a new Mega 360 today from Humminbird as a Replacement for the other one that had problems. It’s on the boat and ready to rock! Kudos to HB Tech Support and their Warantee department.

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Originally Posted by Duckmann

You only run too fast on Dogwood until it costs you money in repairs. Nothing like hitting an unseen stump in 30 foot of water. Unless management has changed moving the channel markers back into place is not a priority.

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It’s the same in Patoka now as they are drawing it down to winter pool and stumps and standing trees everywhere now.

Could somebody please explain the thought process behind the water level on Patoka. I've not seen it down to summer pool for 2 years. Now they are drawing it down to winter pool. Hope it doesn't turn off dry. I really do like this lake but haven't fished it in prolly 3 years. Caught a bunch of 8" crappie then maybe it will come back.

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Cevans That was fast service from HB. Hope it goes better for you now. Duckman is right about the stumps. I have run the same lines on DW for years but forgot about one stump out in open water last week and thumped it good. I run my dad's old river boat there with a 15 hp. Wasn't going full speed but the tiller handle still ripped out of my hand and the boat jerked to the right. That's exactly why I wear my LV anytime I step foot in a boat. That's why I won't put my Triton on DW too.

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Originally Posted by Curlytail

Could somebody please explain the thought process behind the water level on Patoka. I've not seen it down to summer pool for 2 years. Now they are drawing it down to winter pool. Hope it doesn't turn off dry. I really do like this lake but haven't fished it in prolly 3 years. Caught a bunch of 8" crappie then maybe it will come back.

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Its been longer than 2 yrs,,,more like going on 5 as that is when we lost the grass and weed beds on Patoka and the crappie fishing went bad. Other day, 60:degree water, muddy to heavy stained in places, they wouldn’t hit a crank bait, but caught quite a few on jigs but all were 7-8” dink’s as I was exploring and covering the lake from Osborne all the way To Kings Bridge. We needed a breeze that day to create a ripple. I hate fishing in calm water.

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Originally Posted by Whaler

Cevans That was fast service from HB. Hope it goes better for you now. Duckman is right about the stumps. I have run the same lines on DW for years but forgot about one stump out in open water last week and thumped it good. I run my dad's old river boat there with a 15 hp. Wasn't going full speed but the tiller handle still ripped out of my hand and the boat jerked to the right. That's exactly why I wear my LV anytime I step foot in a boat. That's why I won't put my Triton on DW too.

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A teck support person from HB back in Dec. informed me that I got one of the first 10 that was released from HB as the Mega 360 was loaded with software version 1.05. He gave me a drop box website of HB’s to go to as they had just wrote version 1.06 software to adjust the operation of the wet switches but hadn’t released it yet. The 2 little wet switches in the top, when the 360 is deployed, turn the Mega on and when you take it out of the water, stops it from spinning and shuts it off. Installing software 1.06 made it work. Then I finally got the Y cable to hook the helix 10 MDI transducer and Mega 360 both up to the 10. At the same time, HB released software version 1.07 to improved conductivity of the wet switches. A small millimeter of electricity jumps across those wet switches to activate when in water as water activates the Electrical current. Version 1.07 caused it to not work when deployed in a lake, but when in the garage, with a wet paper towel HB R&D had me test my well water, bottled distilled water, water from a 4 acre lake, water from a slew of the White River and a bucket of water from Boggs. Every type of water worked in the garage and even if I submerged it as deep as possible in a 5 gal bucket. I even tried a bucket of water filled with ice cubes and it would work in the garage. I go over to West Boggs and launch, and for 3 hrs try different setups, even re wiring the mega 360 directly to its own battery bypassing and unwiring all Electrical in the boat and when I would deploy the Mega 360 even with a wetted paper towel turning it on and Spinning,,,as soon as the paper towel would float off the top of the wet switches and they were covered by a inch of lake water, it would shut off, raise the transducer pod to catch the floating wet paper towel and wet switch out of the lake..it would automatically turn on. Even with me holding it with the unit spinning and a wet paper towel on the wet switches and stuck barely in the lake and not with the wet switches in the lake...I could get a perfect picture of the lake bottom on the helix 10 DI both in SI setting as well as 360. HB R & D wanted it back as it’s the only Mega 360 that is operating that way and they can’t figure out why until I guess, they tear it apart. While at Boggs, I had the old software version 1.06 on a card and I also flashed the Mega 360 from software version 1.07 back to software version 1.06. That didn’t even work. Take the Y cable off and just have the Mega 360 plugged into the 10 MDI, that didn’t work. Turn the network off and all the other depth finders off, that didn’t work. HB also wanted to know if I had tried the Mega 360 in different lakes of which I thought about that myself so I tried it in Lake Lemon, Patoka, and West Boggs as all water in different lakes can have a different density especially at a different water temperature. All testing was noted and written down in,postings on the BBC forum and directly to HB personnel for documentation and with the pull of a few people, I think HB broke a few rules and shipped me a new Mega 360 as they kept saying they wouldn’t be able to ship till after the lockdown they were in in Alabama and it’s also posted in their website. Guess I got lucky, but if you ever have a problem with electronics and work with your supplier on working on a solution to the issue, I feel you will develop a better relationship in solving the issues and getting things accomplished. Your suppliers and manufacturers do want to know of a problem and how to solve it for the benefit of the user!

So I got a question about hummingbird. I have been told that hummingbird is the only one that is compatible with minn kota trolling motors. I'm wondering what others think of this. I am looking at upgrading my units but not sure which way to go. I currently have lowrance on console with down imaging. Would like to upgrade to something with side imaging on console. But I have been told I can't move my lowrance to the front because it will not hook up to my built in transducer on my trolling motor. Any help ?

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Only way is to attach a transducer to your trolling motor from your lowrance. It’s one of the reasons, Lowrance came out with the Ghost trolling motor. I am not a guru or pay a lot of attention to the Lowrances anymore, or the Garmins, or the Motoguide trolling motors that much. To darned much to know and learn from all these makes and models and everything changes so quickly with new models bring brought out every year, it’s all hard to keep up with.

Well new trolling motor is out of question. I'm not made of money. I have helix 5 up front now. I guess I will start looking at helix's for console. Only problem with that is I have to buy new chip for lake maps. I really like the Garmin units they seem easy to use.

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Originally Posted by Whaler

Cevans That was fast service from HB. Hope it goes better for you now. Duckman is right about the stumps. I have run the same lines on DW for years but forgot about one stump out in open water last week and thumped it good. I run my dad's old river boat there with a 15 hp. Wasn't going full speed but the tiller handle still ripped out of my hand and the boat jerked to the right. That's exactly why I wear my LV anytime I step foot in a boat. That's why I won't put my Triton on DW too.

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I lived in Washington from 1993-2000. Fished and hunted DW every spare minute. In the first goose season I hooked up with Don Obryan who lived in Glendale and had been all over the property since childhood long before DW was formed. We were running dark as we usually did during hunting season heading to the south end of the lake to a blind when he smacked a stump in midlake. His comment "that wasn't there yesterday". I have many good memories of my family times there and hate what I see on here about current lake conditions.

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Originally Posted by Curlytail

Well new trolling motor is out of question. I'm not made of money. I have helix 5 up front now. I guess I will start looking at helix's for console. Only problem with that is I have to buy new chip for lake maps. I really like the Garmin units they seem easy to use.

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Depending on the transducer your currently using, you might check and see if there is a bracket to place around it to attach to the bottom of the trolling motor.