Early May

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Any walleye caught/sighted?
I didn't spend any time targeting walleye but usually catch a few bonus walleye while targeting smallmouth or striper. This was my first trip in years that I didn't catch a walleye. I think it was just bad luck and too many stripers and smallmouth taking my lure before the walleye had a chance.
Last year I caught a number of walleye.IMG_6159.jpeg
 
Hey Brian. Is that forward or perspective mode? Just got livescope and still trying to figure it out. Thanks
Yes, that is the forward mode. The live scope is especially helpful for catching stripers. It takes a little effort to learn to use but it is very educational. One thing I've learned is there are a lot more fish down there than I thought there was or less fish than I thought there was. Some places in the lake have very few fish. When I've thought it was only 2 or 3 smallmouth chasing my lure, it was really 10. While anchovies fishing for stripers I would think it was only 1 or 2 but find out it is 50 or 100 stripers. I was watching stripers chase my jerkbaits, spoons, Walleye Assasins and anchovies. Several times had 25-50 of them chasing a lure. I might only see 2-5 chase it to the boat but there were many others that I couldn't see without the forward facing sonar. You can adjust your retrieve in real time to trigger the bites. You can also confidently give up on a spot when you don't see them on the lives scope instead of taking "one more cast". Striper schools that used to just disappear can now often be relocated.
 
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Brian I am learning a lot of how to use my fish finder from your pictures ,thanks for posting. Also I have always like how you show the lure you use . I have bought that lipless crankbait from your prior post.
That Redeye shad is a confident bait for me. There are many other great lipless crankbaits out there as well. The red and orange colors are good for spring bass on many lakes I've fished in different states. The orange lures have surprisingly done just as well as shad color for stripers for me. I'll use shad color as well. The color doesn't seem as important as the retrieve.
My dad was right, I should have cleaned the screens of my fish finders more often. In person the images were much better than they show up on the internet but I've always appreciated other peoples fish finder pictures, so I try to remember to add a few of my own.
 
Awesome report and thanks for sharing such detailed information! It's always helpful to see the baits that folks are using. I also love seeing the sonar pictures! I recently put a couple Helix units on my boat so it's getting me excited to see the screen covered like that. I'm definitely going to try and remember to take plenty of screenshots to share if/when I see large school or other cool things on the graph.
 
IMG_1488.jpegMost of the striper schools I saw on the graph where only 15 or 25 fish. Occasionally I came across larger schools that had several hundred or more than 1000 in the area.
These two images are more typical of what I would see when I came across stripers.
The first one shows a school of at least 40. Most are on the left side of the screen, just above the 45.7ft. There are about 10 on the right side of the boat at the same level. My screen time is 105 seconds, so I passed over these fish about 45 seconds earlier.

The below image shows a bunch of stripers close to the bottom. They were probably 5-15 feet below the surface until the boat came close and then they dove to the bottom. All those black dots above the 32.6ft are stripers. They are not as easy to spot when they are far out to the side and/or hugging the bottom.

Last year I graphed what I thought was a group of suspended stripers 20-40 feet below the surface against a steep wall in the shade. I’ve caught 100’s of stripers in the in this exact spot in the past. To my surprise I caught zero stripers but did catch a ?dozen? 2-4 lb catfish when I stopped to catch the “stripers”.

IMG_1487.jpeg
 
Great report and here is a novel idea take a photo of the fish with the lure he was caught on in his mouth every one should do that .
when we can see the lure we can id the lure and buy one for our next trip. Dennis J from Junction
Ok let me know if you can I D this lure?20240510_133853.jpg
I'll help it's a 5in Yamamoto single tail chartreuse pepper on a 3/8oz jig, them green sunfish are aggressive little fish.
 
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