I'm headed to Rayburn w/son for first time this weekend. I have my boat lanes marked from boatlanes.com. It's a bit daunting to drive around in such a big lake. Anything I should be overly concerned about?

Thanks

I have the boat lanes chip, so far its been pretty accurate. The stump line north of the 147 bridge needs to be moved south about 200 yards as there are a few stumps that stick out of the box he has.

Ken Smith's You Tube videos are very helpful.

The boatlanes chip is good. Don't get overwhelmed with the size of the lake. For the first time it will be easier to stay from caney to the south. That's pretty much all open and there are fish all arpund. If you don't mind some stumps then head north and have fun. The chip will take you there but idle only when you get a little north of 147 outside the lane. The stump line is marked

Rayburn in a nutshell. Above 147 lots of stumps, below 147 lots of stumps to about Caney-Veach. The old paper maps show the lanes and true stump fields. It's called black forest and Amber forest for a reason

Get Vick's chip, it's a great $35 investment. I had always been told Rayburn was so bad, but after running all over it, Fork is far far worse IMHO. You'll have a great time. I've fished it a total of 3 days and it is far and away my favorite lake!

At the water level its at now, there really is very little that will cause damage.

There's two large stumps just north of 147, one around 1/2 way cross the bridge, just north of it a couple hundred yards. There's another large stump on the northeast side of 147 headed towards Jackson Hill. I had never seen that one before, it was there about three weeks ago. It's close to the boat lanes route from 147 to Jackson Hill I believe. Both are visible but very big so watch out for them. I know there's a lot of others but these two are the ones that I have seen that stand out by themselves in an area that is fairly open, at least visibly clear. I'm far from knowing Rayburn well but I had run by the one stump (147 to Jackson Hill east side) numerous times on numerous occcasions and never seen it so guessing it's a floater that got stuck there for a while. I've had good luck running the boat lanes, idling in areas I'm not sure on. It's my favorite lake, just be careful.

That's certainly one way to look at it. Or you can imagine how many thousands of stumps are a foot or less under the surface in the black forest and Amber forest. Every foot the lake drops it's a noticeable difference in how many you start seeing. Guys are running everywhere over stumps right now whether they know it or not

For someone that's never been on Rayburn before I'd take this advice very carefully. I've been in a couple of areas that was told was clear, nothing to worry about, and went by a monster stump all by itself. This was at the current lake level or higher, they were there a year later also so not something that new. Of course if there's one around I seem to go right by it.

Well some people have more luck then others.

True. I've been watching guys run "hippie go naked" for the last month up north, the stumps they've miraculously missed back then are just now poking out of the water. For every stump like that, there are numerous ones just a few inches under the water now. The lake is 1.47' low right now and guys are running through some very bad stuff not even beginning to know what's there. I saw folks pulling a tube around Saturday in an area I would not even run at this level.

I say that when it's full or better. It's getting to the damage level right now

With my luck I�d find the very little!