fishing with my oldest son on oh lake 2-18-12

[nofish]

i wanted to take my son to the long hunter boat ramp today to see the fish at the weigh in for the percy priest hybrid and striper club tournament, but he had misunderstood me and thought i meant i was taking him fishing so we went fishing instead. we went to old hickory lake for about 2 hrs and he caught these 2 fish. these are the 1st 2 fish he's ever caught. i'm glad we ended up fishing instead.

[Dakota]

Nofish at least u had somefish. Looks like he was happy. What part of old hickory were u on.

[nofish]

we fished around shutes branch

[agelesssone]

Much better to take your son fishing than to watch a weigh in. Glad he caught some fish, he'll probably be hooked for life now.

Do you belong to PPHSC?

I joined last year, went to a few meetings. Didn't find it to be as informative as I had hoped.

The president of the club is a guide and he seems to win almost all of the tournaments so it seems like it is just a personal piggybank for him. If you ask him where he caught his fish, his response would be something like "in the water". What did you catch them on? "A hook".

I haven't decided if I should rejoin or not. Another member I know has decided he's not going to re-up for basically the reason.

[nofish]

Originally Posted by agelesssone

Much better to take your son fishing than to watch a weigh in. Glad he caught some fish, he'll probably be hooked for life now.

Do you belong to PPHSC?

I joined last year, went to a few meetings. Didn't find it to be as informative as I had hoped.

The president of the club is a guide and he seems to win almost all of the tournaments so it seems like it is just a personal piggybank for him. If you ask him where he caught his fish, his response would be something like "in the water". What did you catch them on? "A hook".

I haven't decided if I should rejoin or not. Another member I know has decided he's not going to re-up for basically the reason.

Wow! That sucks! No I'm not a member, but I was wanting to join for some schooling on Striper fishing from seasoned veterans. It says on their site that for members there's a free exchange of information such as where and when they've been catching and baitsused and methods. That's why I wanted to join was to get a jumpstart on the Striper lessons.

[nofish]

There site says the $20 membership fee will save you hundreds of $ annually because you'll know where the fish are being caught and what they're being caught on. I don't know firsthand if this is true or not, but that's why I've been wanting to join because that information is well worth $20. I also thought the tournaments and fish frys would be fun.

[Travis C.]

You don't need to be a part of their club to curb the learning curve on Percy. Heck, this forum would be just as much if not better. There is some great striped fish chasers on here.

I'd say save the $20 and put it into gas for chasing the schooling bait fish and birds on Percy.

If you want to learn to chase those fish on Percy this time of year, go up around the forks of the stones where they come together and look for the baitfish. Work that area of the lake and watch for the baitfish schools or birds which will be feeding on the baitfish schools that are getting attacked by fish. Other areas once we get later into spring then summer is look around Suggs creek and Old Hickory Cove. I don't think anyone's spots have been ousted since those places are pretty common spots.

Usually the topwater bite is in early morning per-sun up or just after and similar timeframe as sun goes down. That is due to light penetration pushing baitfish down. Other than those times or if you catch a school on the surface by locating the birds you are fishing down in the water column.

Schooled up on the surface: spooks, poppers, big twister tail grubs, flukes, stick baits like redfins are good and I am sure there are others people will suggest.

If they are not schooled up on top and no birds around: find the schools of baitfish on your graph look for predator fish near by or even actively attacking and then fish live bait to them on down lines.

An old fashioned way to get after them that’s really effective is spoon plugging or trolling a spoon plug but I don't know if anyone around still does that.

[Travis C.]

Originally Posted by nofish

i wanted to take my son to the long hunter boat ramp today to see the fish at the weigh in for the percy priest hybrid and striper club tournament, but he had misunderstood me and thought i meant i was taking him fishing so we went fishing instead. we went to old hickory lake for about 2 hrs and he caught these 2 fish. these are the 1st 2 fish he's ever caught. i'm glad we ended up fishing instead.

Nice fish! I really enjoy taking my little ones out as well. I only hope it sticks and they enjoy it half as much as I do once they get older.

If nothing else comes from it they will at the very least have that memory.

Great job.

[nofish]

Originally Posted by Travis C.

Nice fish! I really enjoy taking my little ones out as well. I only hope it sticks and they enjoy it half as much as I do once they get older.

If nothing else comes from it they will at the very least have that memory.

Great job.

Thanks Travis. It's always fun watching your kid's eyes light up and it's extra cool when they get excited about something you love.

[agelesssone]

Nofish, I joined last year when I lived in Germany, and like you, I wanted to get a leg up on the learning curve. What a disappointment.

I've since met people who fish around here and have gotten more advice from them than I ever received at the PPHSC.

Travis gave some good advice here too. Get a cast net, learn to throw it, go find some baitfish, get some shad for bait, then fish UNDER the baitfish for the hybrids. Not many stripers in JPP from what I hear, mostly hybrid striped bass.

If you want the stripers (rockfish) that's a different story for another thread.

[bd-]

I've never been a member of any fishing tournament club that was much good for learning how to fish. You're competing with the other members; they're only going to show you so much. And usually those club tournaments are kind of clique-ish and not really outgoing to new members in my experience.

There's no substitute for putting your time in on the water. If you want to spend money shortening the learning curve, hire a guide for a day or two. It'll cost you two or three hundred bucks for a day, but if you pay attention you will learn more than you'd learn in ten years belonging to a tournament club.

bd

[nofish]

i have a castnet and i can generally find baitfish, but i have an old hummingbird wide 100 depthfinder that i don't have much faith in. i'm fixing to get a lowrance 520 with gps and i'm trying to save my pennies and get a hummingbird si unit. i think a better sonar unit will make a big difference for me. i've only had 2 sonar units and one was a bottomline and the wide 100 i have now.

[Travis C.]

Originally Posted by agelesssone

Not many stripers in JPP from what I hear, mostly hybrid striped bass.

If you want the stripers (rockfish) that's a different story for another thread.

There is a good popluation of them in Percy just not your really really large fish that the Cumby produces. You can catch numbers of 5-10 lbers with some mid-upper teens mixed in along side all the hybrids.

[Travis C.]

Originally Posted by nofish

i think a better sonar unit will make a big difference for me.

It wouldn't hurt but you can still find the shad schools with that unit. I used to have that unit on my old boat. Find the schools and the fish won't be far.

Don't use it in fish symbol mode. Please take it off that if you do. When it's (all hummingbirds) in that mode it picks up everything as a fish even debris floating in the water. The only reason Lowrance has the "fish" symbols on their units is because people complained that Hummingbird had them. The archs are so much more precise.

A trick to getting more out of units like that is running a double echo or sending the signal down twice. To do so you put it in Manual, the turn the depth range to twice the water depth you are in, turn the sensitivity up until you get two bottoms (double echo), after that happens you back the sensitivity off until the doubled bottom goes away and stop there.

It may give you some surface clutter but you'll get a lot better bottom detail as a trade off. You will have to adjust more since you have to play with it as you change places. That is why some rather just use auto mode but they can miss a lot or get stuck fishing over something that drifted by and auto shows it as a school of fish. The new units which are stronger some this still helps but some are powerful enough to not need it. Some guys still run the new ones this way regardless what they are. Every little edge helps.

[nofish]

Originally Posted by Travis C.

It wouldn't hurt but you can still find the shad schools with that unit. I used to have that unit on my old boat. Find the schools and the fish won't be far.

Don't use it in fish symbol mode. Please take it off that if you do. When it's (all hummingbirds) in that mode it picks up everything as a fish even debris floating in the water. The only reason Lowrance has the "fish" symbols on their units is because people complained that Hummingbird had them. The archs are so much more precise.

A trick to getting more out of units like that is running a double echo or sending the signal down twice. To do so you put it in Manual, the turn the depth range to twice the water depth you are in, turn the sensitivity up until you get two bottoms (double echo), after that happens you back the sensitivity off until the doubled bottom goes away and stop there.

It may give you some surface clutter but you'll get a lot better bottom detail as a trade off. You will have to adjust more since you have to play with it as you change places. That is why some rather just use auto mode but they can miss a lot or get stuck fishing over something that drifted by and auto shows it as a school of fish. The new units which are stronger some this still helps but some are powerful enough to not need it. Some guys still run the new ones this way regardless what they are. Every little edge helps.

Thanks Travis, I've never heard that before. I'll give it a try tomorrow.