When looking for brush piles or other structure, do you use bothe side and down scan
Or just one of the two? Any and all information on this would very helpful!

Thanks
Lookingfor 25

I only use the side scan. I set it to 120 feet each side and and set my speed to about 3mph or what ever idle speed is. When I see something I want to look closer at I use the zoom. If it looks good I take a picture which gives an automatic waypoint. Then I go back to the waypoint and use the DI to examine it. If it looks like it will hold fish I leave it if not it gets deleted.

The nice thing about taking a picture is it is stored on the SD card. You can pop it in the laptop and take a good look at it. Also with all the way points it is hard to remember what each waypoint is. So you have the pic to remind you when you move your target over the waypoint. I am still learning but I did find four brush piles last week and two of them had a ton of 9" fish.

In full seraching mode make your intital pass with SI only, with SI distance of between 85 and 120 feet and sensitivity set high. Look mainly for the brighter returns of brush and the shadows they produce. As you drive around mark everything you see that has a decent return. Set your unit to mark with a different icon than you normally use. Then, set the unit to have 2D, DI and SI(45ft or less), and go back over everything you have marked. If it looks good, mark it again with the typical symbol you use. The second mark will be more accurate and you will only have marked what you consider the good spots. You can then delete the first run's marks.

this thread sure sounds like some super high end POTLICKING to me
K A B O O M

Thinks guys for the tips!

What freq, are you set on for all this, btw, Great Info

I leave SI on 800kHz, better detail, you will likely have to increase sensitivity above what you use for 455kHz to get the same return brightness.
The DI is set to 800kHz and also set on "Wide" width
2D is on 200kHz only.

Kinda what I was thinking.
Not trying to come off as a @##, but the best way to find brush piles is to make or collect concrete weights, cut brush material of choice, go sink it in the lake and mark a waypoint.
Coming from a guy that puts out and maintains 25-30 brush piles a year, there is nothing more aggravating then to head to a brush pile that you sweated like a dog to put out, only to have a boat sitting on top of it reeping the rewards of your hard work. Only thing that tops that is when you go back a few days later, the same boat and three of his buddies are camped out on it raping it clean, and they have the gall to tell you to stay off THIER brush pile.
Another is the ones that will idle up to within 10 feet of you like they don't see you and mark a waypoint.
Is that what we've come to with the high end electronics available these days???

Post #1! Sounds like your trying to sound somewhat old school, so you must have been doing this for several years at least. Some simple math shows that you have at least 75 brushpiles, possibly 90, or way more. You see someone on your pile, move on, you have at least 74 more to check out. No reason to get your blood pressure worked up.

X's 2
I'll use the settings next time out!

to TFF !!!

Nutoy, I feel your pain. You just have to remember folks nowadays don't want to work for anything. They want someone else to do the work so that they can reap the rewards. Probably had everything handed to them as a kid, never had to mow the yard or rake leaves. Sadly,it is the society that we live in today. Probably democrats,

Everything that I've found thus far is natural or part of the lake clearing. I have a bunch of scrap PVC to build some with, if Belinda would give a some free time that I didn't spend on the water or in my recliner, I'll assemble some.
I'll post pic's once I've built some, just so ya'll will know I not just a "Potlicker"

You got that right.

X54 Thats home many bp's I've dropped and seen quite a few people sitting on top of them like they owned them. They were surprised when I told them "I" Dropped them and they were welcome. I have come to and always understood once its in the water it is community property. Then its first come first served. I have had a couple that I could never get back on and Drug them suckers 100 yards away! It was then fun watching people go right to looking for them and circle and circle and circle looking for them.

Thanks for the welcome tboxfish.

Hook_Stix, I learned a long time ago that is does absolutly no good to get ones blood pressure up when it comes to brush piles. People are going to find some of them them, thats a given.
I don't have 75 brush piles. That would take more time and sweat then I could afford. I keep around 30 brush piles active and maintained yearly. That is enough work for one person. Just gathering the willow trees is quiet a chore.

The reason for the above post was to bring awareness that someone spent time, money and sweat to bring the brush pile/piles out there.

In most cases, it doesn't bother you if a fella brings his kids out there and gets a handful of crappie for a fish fry.
What bothers me is people that are just as capable, have plenty of time, and plenty of money to put out thier own brush piles. But they choose to throw down $4000 in electronics solely for the purpose of going out and finding piles, camping out on them until they have picked them clean, and moving to the next one. Those are the same people that will see you on a brush pile and pull up within spitting distance to mark the pile.
Would that not bother any of you here if it was you putting out those brush piles?
As stated above, I'm not trying to be a @$$, but just give it some thought from the other side.

That right there about made me bust a gut laughing.

Potlickin', liberals, welfare, entitlement, illegal immigration and democrats are just a fact of life... kinda like Hillary running for president. OMG

It's a messed up world.

Oh geeez, is this going to turn into one of those ILL EAGLE AILENS and Poacher post?

I was kiddin roun yawl .....
sorry for interrupting ...
by awl means carry on

Lol I know I can always go to the crappie section and find some reason not to work for 10 minutes! I love the passion you all have! I have to fight my brain to remind myself two things every morning...

1. The Cowboys will let me down this year

2. If I become a crappie fishermen, my life as I know it will be over


Viva the Sac-a-lait

SO is it Potlicking when you go around shooting under docks, I mean you didn't build the dock for the guy, and has anybody checked with the dozer guy that built the Dam on the lake you fish, he maybe mad as the devil about everyone potlicking his lake, I see both side's of this. and yes I have built and I have some I working on right now to put on fork, so I can have more than 1 or 2 spots to fish, and I try not to potlick anybodys place but heck have you ran DI down the 515 bridge or 154 bridge. you can't ever fish them without potlicking and that goes for the 17 bridge also,
AND IM NOT a DEMOCRAT......LOL

Now if everyone will take a map of lake Fork and Lake O pines and mark all of there fishing holes and send it to me so Im not potlicking..............................lol

I have a graph question also. How does one go about setting up his graph to tell me that nutoy or tbox or whomever
put the brushpile in the lake. Is there a way to tell a natural brushpile from a manmade brushpile? Just checking
cause I have only been doing this 40 years or so and I damn sure don't know how to tell.

Johnny

Well all that I can say is if your fishing a brush pile and someone hollars at you it could be nutoy or tbox, and if so it's there pile.. (Manmade)

I've found large bp's that are full length trees piled up, either took a bulldozer to push up or a 40' barge piled up 12 foot high. Just saying.

If I go fish a new lake and have no prior knowledge of where to find crappie, what do you suppose I am to do. I guess I could have gone to the lake 6 months in advance, dropped my own brush piles and just hoped they would be holding fish.

Nope, I set the graph at 120ft, max sensitivity, 800khz and start marking.



I'm not going to tell you where these are going, but if you find them, I hope they are holding MONSTER CRAPPIE for you.

Well said!

For all you guys that are going to get rid of your SI units so you won't be called a potlicker please PM me. I am looking for a 998 or a 1198.

If ya want to keep piles a secret, put em in private lakes.
The potlicking, the buggywhip, and the whining about people fishing brushpiles on public waters gets old quick.

Starting to sound like the northern and east coast clowns from alt.rec.outdoors.fishing newsgroup from old.

Here's a legitimate question. When I'm buggywhippin crappie I've noticed that on a couple of different down imaging units, particularly the 300 series and the 700 series Humminbirds that the brush piles don't look as substantial on down imaging as they do as they do on the same unit on 2d. My 500 series Humminbird with down imaging and my 4x Lowrance (which is down imaging only) appear to show the piles better. What gives? I mean they look smaller on di with the 300 and 700 Humminbirds.

Thought I saw that lowrance is coming out with a gen 2 potlicker filter soon .

Well Nutoy if you did not want to come across as an a&& hole you should have just passed
this post on by! Now with that said, did you ever stop to THINK THAT maybe I am trying to figure out
how to scan bridges or just maybe have a new graph, or that I want to scan my own piles better!

By the way Nutoy to the forum

I can u/s how it can be frustrating to put in the work, effort, elbow grease and sweat to put in a bunch of bp's and then find folks on them constantly, but that's the nature of the beast. Once in public waters, public property, plain and simple.
I plan to make most of mine out of PVC, which is supposed to be harder to find
But, I'm doing this due to weight and now having a smaller boat.

This thread was originally about SI settings, yet here we go back to this subject again and the treating of folks like they do in another section of this forum.

Well, I guess if finding brushpiles, setting a waypoint, and fishing them makes me a potlicker....then I'm the head potlicker. Been doing it since I bought my first Lowrance 'green box', and not the least bit ashamed.

But back to the subject of this post; yes, I run side scan and down scan at the same time, all the time, and I never run my range on the side scan past 50. If a pile is built low and wide, it can be very hard to pick up and especially if you're running your side scan way the hell and gone out there. Also, the bucket condos or pole condos can be almost impossible to see with just side scan set at wide ranges.

So if you want to be successful at potlicking, as some of the more 'professional' fishermen on this post have called it, set you unit in accordance with the above. Good luck and hope you find a bunch.

Hey LF25 finding brush piles isn't as difficult as finding brush piles with crappie on them. From personal experience, I used to move way too fast. Since I learned to slow way down and take my time in a section of water at a time its gotten so much easier to check out the sticks, rocks, stumps and junk laying on the bottom of our lakes.

Anyone have any idea what settings I need to look at changing on a 300 series and 700 series Humminbird to get the DI to show brush better? Seriously, the screen shows little to nothing of the large stack of wood that i know is down there. Like I said before my 4x Lowrance and 500 series Humminbird show a very detailed picture, right down to the seeing the bucket at the bottom of bamboo sometimes.

contrast settings maybe ?
we almost went for a boat ride this morning .....btw
but I am getting a bit lazy in my ole age

PNSP use the DI enhance to bring up sensitivity, contrast, and sharpness. Most of what I have learned is by watching Doug's videos and spending time on the water or if I get on the water and can't figure something out coming back and finding it in the videos.

Doug Vahrengerg

does that new 688 hummingbird di thingee I put on the minnow have that in the menu area ?

+2

On the "potlicking" rant... At what point do all the PVC brush piles become litter? Just saying because if everyone puts out 5 a year in 10 years that's 50 brush piles and if everyone is only 100 people, that would be 5000 brush piles. PVC lasts for a LONG time as does the concrete that is weighting down. I realize that these are natural "reefs" , but...

Ketchn
I think the menu on the DI view is the same on all units. In the DI view hit the menu button and you are looking for DI enhance should be about two down on the pull down menu.

Thanks for the welcome LF25.

Let me add something to this that I should have put in my very first post, because it probably wouldn't be seen now that this has gone to multiple pages.

When refering to brush piles, I wasn't talking about "natural" piles or bridge pillings. On T-Bend, there are VERY few natural brush piles that are not attached to the bank. ie: fallen trees.

I myself have high end electronics. They are used mostly for bass fishing, but I also use them to mark and look at the brush piles I've put out.

Have I ever found someone elses pile with them, sure. Did I fish it, yes. Did I repeatedly camp out on it and tell every lazy slob about it. NO... but if that makes me a potlicker, well I'm guilty as charged.

So in a nut shell, there are three types of people when it comes to brush piles.
1. Those that spend the time, do the work and spend the money to put out piles with the expectation of reaping the rewards of thier hard work.
2. Those that find a brush pile, catch a few fish off it and move on. He may also drop a few piles or maybe not. He doesn't get on his cell phone or post a ad in the local paper with coordinates. No guy that hauls out brush piles will have a problem with this guy.
3. The true potlicker/poacher. The guy that spends thousands of dollars on electronics with the SOLE intention of finding brush piles that were put out by other people, has no intention of ever getting off thier lazy @$$ and putting out thier own, and then tells all the other lazy potlickers where the piles are and then tells you to stay off "thier" brush pile. As stated earlier, the typical Obama voter.

The guys that say they've been doing this for decades and can't tell the difference between a natural pile or a manmade one, you might want to upgrade your electronics.
The guys that use the "IT's public water line,, Thats the line that the true potlickers use the most. It's called respect.

Should I have stayed out of this,, maybe,, NAAAAaaaa.

Everthing I have posted is directed at the #3 true potlickers. They know who they are. If it makes them fell the least little bit bad about reaping the rewards of someone elses hard work, I've accomplished what I intended to do.

If you don't fall under the #3 catagory, holler at me next time you are on the Bend and we'll go wack some slabs and have a few

btw nutoy

I think I know a solution. Buy a long piece of schedule 40 PVC. Drive it into the lake bottom. Attach a sign saying built by (your Name). It is a Private Brushpile only to be fished once I have fished it for the week or day. No wait a minute that wouldn't work. Then the Electronics industry would go broke... It's such a vicious cycle.

I've put out my own, found other's piles and fished anything I find that is in the lake that I want to fish. If it's yours and you want to fish it, come fish it. I don't own it. I prefer finding underwater trees to fish that can't be tied up to.

Mark it will have the adjustments to make the image pop...


[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xKA4OA8o570[/video]

now thats good useful information thanks for sharing

so what eveyone is saying is that "only democrates and Obama voters are lazy and fish other peoples brush piles and never put out their own" WoW I'm A democrat and voted for Obama. I've put out my own brush piles at Fork and it's funny the only people that I've seen fish them are republicans. I guess they are just trying to get back at me foe voting for Obama and to make things worse I'm going to vote for Hillery if she runs. I guess they will take all my brush piles now, shame on you!!!!

It is sad to see this thread turn as NASTY as the other one .only a sanctimonus [scuse the spelling] [censored]
would think he can look a a total stranger and KNOW he has never put out a pile and who he voted for.
good fishing, Godbless and Merry Christmass.

That reminds me, "You didn't build that" I'm a lazy Republican Potlicker.

Let me make myself perfectly clear....I don't mind you fishing my brush pile I found.

Exactly!!!

Man, I am in big trouble.

I tell anybody who asks the coordinates of brush piles and structure I find on Joe Pool. (Note: I said that I find, not those that I am told about. So if you want to keep your brush piles safe you had better hurry and pm the coordinates to me. )

Even worse I tell people about the three (hanging head in shame, only three) porcupine fish attractors I put out at my slip and tell people where the slip is located so they can fish them. (Two are at the end of the slip so they are very easy to fish from a boat.)

An even worse I am an Independent who votes for the person, not the political party. So I don't vote for the Republican if he is a complete moron. ((I often vote for the Green Party candidate, since both the D and the R parties put morons on the ballot.) (Yes, I know the Green Party candidate can not win so my vote is a symbolic protest against placing morons on the ballot.) (And yes, I voted for Obama this time. Nominate a decent candidate and I promise to vote for him the next election.))

So I must be even more worthless than even a worthless potlicker, since I give anybody who asks the coordinates of structure and brush piles I find on Joe Pool, tell people who asks where to find my slip to fish the fish attractors I put out and finally, I think for myself when it is time to vote instead of voting for a party hack (of either Political Party). (and sometimes I tell people who don't ask if I see them planning on fishing Joe Pool Lake in this forum)

And I had thought I was just being a good forum member when I helped other forum members find fish on Joe Pool Lake.

Public resources. It's not my fish, my lake or my brush pile. They belong to all of us. Scan away, mark the waypoints. Share the information or keep it to yourself. Texas is a big state and I have yet to fish every lake, I'm sure there are a few crappie left in some of them.

Putting out brushpiles, does it scatter the fish or does it concentrate them? Heck, I don't know. Stumps, ledges and rock piles hold crappie too. I might even be able to catch a whole bunch from bridges and even get a limit without ever fishing a brush pile.

Life is short my TFF friends. Enjoy it and enjoy the sport we all seem to share an addiction for. There's plenty of crappie to go around.

Its Kinda Like Fishing Docks, the Owners put traps in the water to hang you up when you fish there , They own the Land , The Dock, and That's It !! but I've had My Butt Chewed multiple times for "Cathing Their Fish" Go Figure.... It's the Same with Brush Piles, If i Spend My Fuel, My Time and My Patience to Find Your Brush Pile , Well "Soddie Challie", I'm Fishing Here ,But I will offer you a chance to Have a Fish Fry with "Our" Fish at the end of the Day.... It Aint No Fun , Less it's Fun , and It's Fun..... "Go Fish" My Brothers of the Rod.

My head is spinning with all the exceptions, viewpoints and debates
Let's all just go FISHING!
If you see my "Green Crappie Machine" pull up and we can fish together

THANKS to all that shared DI & SI setting info
I learn more about my unit every time I fish by using the feedback giving here on the forum.

This was a simple question about using graphs not to call any one out! Sorry it turned out to
be a drag through the mud!

I wonder who started all the BS?

I will send you my phone number and answer any question on setting that you may have.

Just remember your settings will always change with the bottom hardness.

MY bad ....didn't realize how sensitive the settings are in this here area ....

............