Navionics lake of the week 3-24-13

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Navionics lake of the week 3-24-13

Post by site admin »

This is a natural lake in the midwest.
A certain spoonplugger is very familiar with this lake. Maybe he can jump in at the END to answer and confirm the questions and interpretations.

What is your first reaction when looking at the map?
Where would you troll?
Where would you anchor?
Best area for prespawn fish?
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jwt
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Re: Navionics lake of the week 3-24-13

Post by jwt »

First thing that jumps out is that 34' hole in the NE corner; looks mighty inviting at ice-out! Followed by the 22' and the 26' holes.
Last edited by jwt on Tue Mar 26, 2013 12:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Kevin McClure

Re: Navionics lake of the week 3-24-13

Post by Kevin McClure »

My first reaction when I took a look at the map is that although it is rather small, it has a lot of good structure situations. 3 deep holes, quite a few humps.
Early season, I would fish the steep break to the north of the 34' hole. I'm not sure how large the holes is, but I would position my boat so that I could fancast and cover the entire hole.
The sharpest break in the lake is into that 34' hole. The deepest water in the lake appears to be the same hole. There appears to be a bar just to the NW of the 34' hole. There is a 9' hump just below the 34' hole and a 3' hump that breaks sharp at first before going into the 25' hole.

John, Fran, Steve or anyone else. Is the steep break just north of the 34' hole possibly an inside turn? Thanks!

This looks like a fun lake to fish. Thank you, Jim. Kevin
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Fran Myers
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Re: Navionics lake of the week 3-24-13

Post by Fran Myers »

Yes, it's an inside turn but a lot of things seem to come together around that hole doesn't it?
I hope this isn't another trick Jim because I don't recognize this lake either. ;-p

When ever I see Lakes like this I concentrate around the deepest section. Depending on the water color and weed growth it could be the only place to get a chance at getting a fish. Of course after I started writing this post I went back to the map and looked.

We all went right for the deep hole however if you look on the west side of the lake there is a 15' hole that is surrounded by flats. There will be a school of fish in there. Again depending on water color, weed growth, traffic this might be a VERY good place to fish. There are humps and bars attached to it.

I've made some changes to my fishing the last few years. When I go to a lake with more than one hole I've started at the shallowest hole, then deeper, and deeper...while I am sure the deepest water has the biggest and most fish - that doesn't always mean the deepest has the most active fish. I have experienced serious fish activity in the shallower, and mid pools where there was nothing going on in the deepest. And believe me it's hard to leave active fish. But sometimes you need answers.

Remember deepest water in the lake, in the area, or available.

One more...

Want to post a good lake Jim, post Osakis...
Anyway before we went to Osakis in my brother in laws kitchen I pointed out the 4 spots I would expect to catch fish. Having never been there I had no idea that 3 of them were well known spots. And except when I went out in the rain by myself I couldn't get on the spots (fantastic stuff break lines past 45' long straight passes with hard spots all along at all depths).

The kids wanted to fish so we put 400's and 250's and played with the Pike at the weed line.

Then my brother in law went out to find the bigger fish. All but one spot I looked at on map were covered with other boats. So we fished a couple of other spots. During the the search I discovered that there were deep water humps all over the place some we in 50' of water and came up to 45' others were at 22' and came up to 20'.

What we did was work the humps with straight line passes from the top to the bases and while we ran free for a bit, we did catch Walleyes. We were not bothered and when people would come and see what we were doing no one bothered us.

This wouldn't work for Bass.
Fran Myers
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Re: Navionics lake of the week 3-24-13

Post by site admin »

Yes, don't pass up the 17' hole on the west side.
The 34' hole is obvious, but it breaks way to shallow on the north side and south side. I would work the west side bar. And there is a bottom breakline, looks like around 22' on the east side of the 34' hole. Most of the breaklines are shallow, perhaps concentrating on the bottom breakline is the way to go. Water color is the key on this lake.
i didn't "fish" this lake, but i did spend a day on it... and was entertained by the banana spoonpluuger and the Jedi Master himself...
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Re: Navionics lake of the week 3-24-13

Post by Bink »

First thought, I'd park here
First thought, I'd park here
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Where I'd troll
Where I'd troll
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Where I'd anchor
Where I'd anchor
image.jpg (248.98 KiB) Viewed 4753 times
Where Id focus in prespawn
Where Id focus in prespawn
image.jpg (236.22 KiB) Viewed 4753 times
"Spoonpluging is a good way to catch all fish but not the best way to catch any fish
Kevin McClure

Re: Navionics lake of the week 3-24-13

Post by Kevin McClure »

Fran, I like what you said about sometimes fishing shallower to catch more active fish. In these deep highlands out west, sometimes the final break into deep water is occuring at 80' into 100'+........ I will continue to work on my deeper presentations, but sometimes, like John Bales talked about in one of his first 3 DVD'S, you change tactics. He switched to trolling the weedline for straglers because he wasn't catching anything on the points and fingers. I'll move to a more reachable depth that matches my experience. I won't give up on the deeper stuff. It just takes more practice and experience....and sometimes you just want to catch some fish.
I like what Mr. Perry did in one of the old Fishing Facts Magazines. He was fishing other areas, but he would frequently go back to the contact point and check it out. Kevin
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Re: Navionics lake of the week 3-24-13

Post by jwt »

Prespawn. Because the depth of the weedline isn't given, I'm going to make an assumption that it is about 10' and work from there. From ice-out I would fancast the deep hole until the water temperature approached 50 deg. At that time I would start watching to see if they were moving up on the inside turn in the north end, i.e. sharper breaking into the deepest water, and work the outside of the weedline down the left side of of the hole. At the same time, because I've never fished this lake, I wouldn't pass up the outside of the weedline along the right side of the hole. My lures of choice would be light blade baits and light jigs.
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Re: Navionics lake of the week 3-24-13

Post by site admin »

This is Atwood lake... !!
John.... Comments? Have you ever seen the HD map before?
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John Bales
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Re: Navionics lake of the week 3-24-13

Post by John Bales »

You know......... it's really funny that I wouldn't notice that this is the lake that I live on. Probably because you are only showing a section of the lake. I have not seen this map before. This was at one time one of the better bass lakes around. The weed line goes to 12-13 feet and is mostly all soft bottom. The best big bass spot is to the right center of the deepest hole. There is a nice finger there. The bar to the left of the hole is good also. There are 4 schools of adult bass in this lake and two or three more that are 3 pounders or less. About 7 years ago they did a total weed kill and used a chemical called sonar. They did a great job of killing the weeds. This lake had a cabbage based weedline and they made it so that you could cast a blade bait and drag it and never touch a weed anywhere in the lake. I cannot explain why there were not dead fish all over the place but it took me 4-5 years before I was able to catch a fish over 3lbs. I went to meetings to try and explain what they did to my dream and no one believed me that they put a hurting on the fish population. I was laughed out of the room. I have not attended since then and mind my own business. This same thing happened to a couple of other lakes that were treated in the same way and at the same time. The sad part is that it is controlled by the lake association. allowed by our DNR and grants are given by the state to do this. They are ruining our fishing waters and there is nothing that we can do. Sorry about the bitching. I now go to other places and look for one that they have not screwed up. Leave it up to man to ruin everything. This is why I say that if you find a place that is good, fish it and cherish it because it won't last forever. John
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