Kolban,

Finally something I can give advise on. I would try to take that anchor back and get a J.E. Chene Company Chene Anchor for your size boat. You will also want a 3 to 4 foot chain, which they aslo sell, (I got a coated one) and plenty of line. I think the rule is three times longer than the depth you are tring to anchor.(Somene correct that if I am wrong). I am on my second one. Lost the first trying to be quick and cute on the retreive. I digress. This anchor, if set right has not failed me yet and with one exception (had to pull out with the boat) is easy to pull up.


Hope this helps,
Karl

tough fishing on EM today. went out abt 9:30am, got 15 at the dam . went to power plant slough , two cats on minnows - 4lb cat my son lost- oh well; catch-n-release, hahhaaa. north/west side of the island ; marked fished like crazy - no bite but it was abt 1:00pm and lots of traffic . 1:00pm-2:30pm joined the fish(went swimming with my boys). 18 fish 8 keepers.
thought i saw fishinboy in cc with the blk flag?
anyone find the fish ?

that was my dad out there today he had 17 keepers all over 11 inches. i played hookie today...had a BBQ. hopefully it will be better this week.

Went out to the lake at sunrise but took my brother in law. Went to the dam humps for about an hour and caught two sandies :-) I used a second anchor that is "classic anchor shape" that seemed to work. Karl ... thanks for the input ... when I bought my "13lb disc" anchor, I also bought the anchor shaped anchor at the same time ... thinking that it wouldn't work when I bought it. This time the anchor held. The wind was pretty fierce and the chop/white caps made the sandie fishing a little unpleasent and wanting to give my brother in law some fun, we went catfishing (which for me is somewhat of a proven technique). We caught a few cats and all was well.

My next outing will be next weekend unless I can find some time to get out to the lake of an evening.

Neil

Kolban, you kicked our hiney. I know thats not saying much but we hit the Vine Sun. and EM Mon. and got our butts handed to us . Sun we only caught 5 dinks period, and Mon. we caught exactly nada. Good thing I bought those clickers to keep track of how many we caught . Humbling experiences, just when I think I'm starting to learn something. I couldn't find anything Mon. that looked like it was worth dropping a slab down to. I only tried a couple of spots Mon. and nothing. Both days it was afternoon before we hit the lakes and I think that was the biggest problem, too many drive by skiers and pleasure boaters. Yesterday we were anchored within 30 yds of the dam and I'll be damned if two different skiboats didn't try to go between us and the damn . Luckily both of them saw my marker and turned before waking us. Still managed to take on water from the other idiots .

One thing that I would reccommend is to toss a marker buoy out as soon as you catch the first fish. That will allow you to explore the area holding fish more thoroughly. Marking the first fish is important because in all liklihood there are more fish, possiby a school in the area. Your boat is gonna move off the location pretty quickly. A marker buoy should mark the area and allow you to come back and find the fish.

Find a styrofoam shipping box. Cut it into squares. Remove some more styrofoam to make it into an H form. Wrap some cord around it. Add a 4-8oz weight. You made a cheap marker buoy.

When fishing slabs, I like to "slap the bottom" with the slab. Fish seem to pick it up off the bottom or just before it hits on the fall.

Bamaboy when did you get a new boat..nice.. I live 20min away from grapevine but the ratio of catchin fish there is very low and if you do most of the time, they small dinks...

Kevin, Same boat, different pic. Just wanted a pic with my truck in it. They both happened to be clean at the same time so I snapped a pic.

Take Terry fishing with you and they both will stink.
Johnny

Now thats just mean . I've never had stink/punch bait on my boat and don't really plan on it. If I ever get Bro. Terry on my boat and we fish for kittys I think it will be with cut shad, filleted buffalo, hot dogs, shrimp, or cocktail wennies. Shad stink enough for me. Speaking of Bro. Terry, haven't seen any posts from him this week. Is he out of town again?

I went out to EM this morning (Sun). Was there before sunrise and fished till about noon. HUGE success!!! Yesterday I was out with Fishinboy and we had a blast. No great fishing success but really nice company and I picked up a wealth of tips. Specifically, I had been jigging with the slab hitting bottom and then simply jigging from there. Fishinboy suggested that I vary my depth.

Today, just after dawn as I was leaving the marina I saw a huge school of shad in obvious distress. I cast into them and EVERY cast was a nice sized fish. Let me say this again ... this is from the guy who goes "100's of sandies in a day? How?". Every cast was a nice fish. At no point was I over them but a 50 foot cast took me into them every time. I lost count of how many I landed (and returned) ... and for the first time ever, I would have benefited from a clicker. What a blast!! I must have been on them for a good 30-40 minutes. After which ... the hits died down to nothing and they were gone.

But the memory remained. In that hour I had my fill (for then) for sandies so went to the far north of the lake to a place fishinboy had shown me to try for catfish. I got nothing, not even a nibble and this was on both Secret-7 and luncheon meat ...

I stayed catfishing for about an hour. When I pulled in my anchor, to my dissapointment, I found that the anchor had come free from the rope as I pulled it in. I had bought this nice anchor rope with a clip on the end. The clip is an oval with a spring loaded part that fold into the interior of the oval. Somehow it must have sprung and the anchor come off. I will never let that happen again. I won't trust the anchor clip again and will tie it down.

On the way home I tried briefly at the twin humps in the center of the south end of the lake and caught a huge "something". I am mad that I didn't take a picture. I am pretty sure it wasn't a sandie ... it didn't have the markings ... it was almost like a silvery/white big bass. I'll look at some fish pictures and see if I can't figure it out.

The wind on the lake today was terrible. The waves were whitecaping and I called it a day.

Kolban I'm glad you got into them good and I hope you have many trips like it after this. Let us know what the big one is when you figure it out!

Great going Kolban, I'm glad you got into some heavy action.
I spent my one day off hooking up a new depthfinder on my bow/trolling motor. I remember reading where someone was saying a dealership wanted $80/hr to hook one up. All I can say is that is a great deal.

I wanted to bring this thread to a close. Today I went out with Dave Everrit (http://www.davesguideservice.net/index.html). He examined my technique and my fish finder and declared that I was doing nothing wrong. One of the great discoveries he showed me was a technique of using my anchor line.

Realize that I have a ski boat with no trolling motor. With my fish finder, I am able to locate some fish and toss a marker bouy over the side and try and come back to it. Invariablly I miss the bouy by quite some distance and with all my mucking around trying to get back to it, it is likely the fish have been scared off, too much time has past or theyve simply moved a bit. The bottom line is that even though I can recognize the fish, holding to them has been one of my biggest problems.

Part of this has been my poor way of using an anchor. Realize that I grew up in inner-city Scotland with no boating experience and so no-one has ever shown me how to do anything correctly. I have been dropping my anchor over the side and hoping for the best. Usually the anchor doesn't hold. Anyway ... the knowledge I learned today which hopefully isn't a secret to anyone is to attach a long (say 100ft) anchor rope to my anchor and go "upwind" of where the fish are. Take my time to ensure that the anchor holds and then let my rope/drift carry me into the area and make it tight when ready. When I heard this and saw it ... it was one of those head slap moments where now it just seems obvious ... but if you had previously seen the "games" I had been playing to anchor up near the bouy, my "I fish like a girl" hat would have been very appropriate. I also learned about attaching a chain to the anchor to make it grip better.

All in all I am extremely gratefull to Dave and his service. He is excellent company and simply a great guy. He makes you feel relaxed and never once commented on my doofus antics (for example ... trying to pull in the anchor by unhitching it from the clete (spelling?) while the wind was blowing at 20+ ... note to self ... you can't pull yourself towards a hooked anchor when the boat is exerting more force than you can supply ... nearly pulling me over the side. Another example of my doofus-ness is putting my finger under the line to "feel for bites" while trolling ... when the lure gets snagged and the drag kicks in to release line ... it kinda hurts when the line slices across your fingers)

The weather/wind was pretty rough today so we never did get that much fishing done but the purpose of the visit was for Dave to examine my fish finder (which I didn't have before I used Dave's service last year). Dave offered to assist me with examination and learning once I got one. Dave looked at my Huminbird and pronounced it satisfactory which is good news.

So ... that's it for this post/thread. I plan to continue to post and share in various topics and try and answer the odd question so expect to keep seeing me around. I am always up for meeting my fellow TFFers so feel free to call or PM and we can either arrange to go out together or simply say Hi at the lake.

Neil

Glad to hear it. Sounds like he took good care of you. I've never met him but have heard good things about him. On my first guided trip I was lucky enough to find out that information without having to ask. It was a windy day on Whitney and he ended up using two anchors before it held. Then he informed us you need a 3:1 ratio Live out vs. depth. 30ft depth you need 90ft of rope.