Gilmer tips and tricks

I've not ever fished Lake Gilmer for crappie and we're planning to take the boat up some time this week. The depthfinder bit it so we're going sans electronics. Any general suggestions on where to drop a line for crappie? Stumps, bridge? My bro-in-law put us on some monster 'Gills, hoping to have some crappie luck too. Thanks!

JMac

Without very good electronics, you probably won't fare very well on the crappie. The lake is loaded with timber, but only certain spots hold fish. Use caution on this lake while boating! There are several good brushpiles in the dam area, but will be hard to find without electronics. You can always catch crappie under the bridge, most will be small though.
to the forum!

Thanks Red! We've been on the lake quite a few times, enough to know better than to let it rip across "open water"! I knew there were lots of brush piles around, just never looked for them very hard. Is side imaging of much help or can we get by with regular down imaging?

Thanks for the welcome too 😎 Looking forward to contributing!

Yeah, without graphs you're pretty much peeing in the wind. I've got some some good brush piles on that lake but you'd never find them without a graph. Down Imaging works just fine if you know you're close to the brush. Side imaging, in my opinion, is more of a search tool. SI benefits me searching for brush other than what I've put out.. If you're willing to do the work to set your own brush, then DI is all you'd need. I would look into Garmin. I run DI on my trolling motor and the images are cancun clear. I don't know how close Lowrance will get you to you're coordinates but hummingbird and garmin get you to 10'.

SI sounds like the way to do then. At this point on Gilmer, Pines, or wherever we'd be searching for existing holes.