Fishing Reports?

[liketohuntlovetofish]

I came up Saturday with my 8 and 10 year old to jig fish. I have a depth finder only, not a fish finder, and I use a hand held gps to find reefs/cans etc. Got nothing at crib reef and two at turtle before the wind got too bad to be out with kids. I’d love some tips on getting into all these limits, but I can’t do it with $600 fish finders. I’m pretty limited to drifting a runabout. There was a bass boat next to us at turtle that got their 3 man limit, but they were there sun up to 3:30 that said.

[Joedog]

No need for expensive electronics to jig fish I don't pay much attention to mine fish seem so close to bottom it hard to pick them up on a graph. It's more bout feel and technique I fish with blade bait and imagine I'm bouncing a ball on lake floor as I drift along with drift sick. Trolling electronics are vary important for finding and how deep run your baits .

[dgf2250]

We’ve participated in the jig fishing off turtle creek the past two Saturdays. The first week, were out front at 8 am, but could not get vertical. I had two 18inch trolling socks and got educated on the difference between trolling socks and drift bags. Slowest we could get was .8 to 1.2 mph and all our jigs were 1/2 oz and a couple 3/4 oz jigs. We came home with two fish. The second week, I added a 60 inch trolling sock, and we used 1 oz jigs. Speed was still .6 to .9. For this second trip, I used a Garmin LiveScope. What I observed was even with the 60 inch sock out and one oz jigs, the jig was still 20 ft away from the boat at the point it was contacting bottom. I could see the fish approach and pass my jig. Meanwhile guys on low profile boats around us were killing it. We salvaged the day by trolling. The livescope clearly showed crazy numbers of fish on the bottom and we got them trolling bandits 33-50 back. I have come to the conclusion that you need a drift speed around .3 to .5 to effectively jig and in a higher profile boat, you might need not one, but two 60 inch socks in the 15-20mph winds we had the past two Saturdays. There are enough boats out there that it’s easy to see what the guys who are catching fish are doing and mimic that. I dont think our problem is with the jigging mechanics, I think speed is our issue. I’d say fishing in high winds was culprit if I had not witnessed guys catching fish all over.