Clobbered them today

[TR21HP]

My son and I sneaked a day off today and went fishing in the, as Deitz likes to say, the Chisago Lakes area, and did very well.. Fished 8-12 feet with a Sweet Beaver and a Senko and easily had a 19-20 pound bag for 5. The pictures we took are too large for the site, they are running 3.6-4 mgs each and the two largest fish absolutely inhaled the plastic and gut hooked themselves. Cut the hook on both of them with no bleeding so I think they should be okay but no pictures on those two. Got on the lake at 7 am and off before noon and caught 12 fish between the two of us. Sometime you just got to do that and sneak a day off.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Nice.. I too was on a Chisago Area Lake today, probably got 20 fish between my brother and I.. but our bag probably would have only went 17lbs.. still a fun day though.. would have liked a "Little" wind..

[TR21HP]

Deitz,

A little wind was there early but quickly died off and so went the bite. Did you go shallow at all? We fished some slop with frogs but missed a few.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Flipped some shallow foil.. but for the most part with the conditions, I stayed deep.

[MegaHawk]

what are you guys focusing on for deep structure? mud/rock transitions? points? breaks off of a weed flat? working your baits parallel or 'up hill'?

[Deitz Dittrich]

For me, hard bottom, and how I work it totally depends on how its layed out. If its thin vein, I prefer to cast across it first, then make a few parallel casts to it.. if its a larger hump, I like to work from the outside in.

[thatoneguy]

For those of us who can't afford high-tech sonar, what are some ways to locate deeper water structure like that?

[Gekhang]

what ive been doing is going onto the dnr HSOforum and they have lake maps of alot of lakes in mn. it shows the lake depths of the lake. and ive just been going by that...not sure how accurate or how current it is, but it works for the time being.

[Deitz Dittrich]

For those of us who can't afford high-tech sonar, what are some ways to locate deeper water structure like that?

You could try a really deep crank or a carolina rig and feel the bottom? But thats not really a great use of time unless you have seen other people fish the area or you know of hard bottom area around.. and that too is assuming you know what rock feels like on a carolina rig.. Even many of the cheaper eletronics can tell you the diff between hard bottom and soft, you just have to know how to interpret it.

[Superduty]

If you have any old depthfinder: Go find some shallow rocks in say 5 feet of water. Set your depth range to 10 to 20 feet. Turn up your sensitivity (manual mode) until it just starts to show a double echo. This will simply be two sonar readings on one screen. The true bottom at 5 feet. The second echo at 10 feet. Now you know what hard bottom looks like on your depth finder.

Keep your unit set to this sensitivity level and keep your depth range at least twice the actual depth. You will see bottom transition from soft to hard as you idle around.

[fishn]

I'm curious can you do that with the new ones too?

[Deitz Dittrich]

For sure!!!!

[TR21HP]

The fish we targeted on Friday were off a shallow flat that went from 6-7 feet and had a sharp break to 13 feet. The fish were right on the breakline suspended about 2 feet off the bottom. The weeds that were ther earlier in the year have all but died off and the fish now use this structure to relate to.

[TonkaBass]

For those of us who can't afford high-tech sonar, what are some ways to locate deeper water structure like that?

A flasher will tell you when you are on a good bottom. A roolr jig or c-rig will tell you what's down there for sure. Even some of the best electronics will not show you the best spots...

[Fisherman45]

Had a great morning running cranks over the gravel bottom spots in 10-12 feet of water. Between the calm foggy start at 7:15 and 10:30 I hooked up with 16 fish and only 3 were less that 14". I did seem to get a few more foul hooked ones than normal 2 in the top of the head and a tail hooked one that I thought was my new record when I was bringing him in. I think the crank was hitting bottom about the time the the fouled ones were hitting the lure causing them to miss the target to one side or the other.

[thatoneguy]

Thanks, superduty - a great, user-friendly tip! I'll try it out.