Had a fun day with my oldest catching slabs today!

We did ok on Fork today (not great or even good - but not horrible and any time he wants to spend with me is most welcomed and cherished). Used electric chicken colored LFT artificial jigs and also yellow brush gliders by Bonehead Tackle rigged sideways (1/16 oz jig up top and 1/8 oz. on bottom using loop knots about 12 inches apart)…my boat control is not so great. We were in 22-28 FOW all day checking timber in secondary creek channels. Spooked a bunch with the trolling motor when I’d try and readjust. Any tips on approaching and maintaining position without washing the fish out is appreciated. My spot lock seemed to want to play games with us today. It may have been haunted on this Halloween.

Good times, good memories, and good fish. Life is good!

nice slabs! time well spent! great job dad

Boat control is learned from time on the water so it sound like there's more trips needed.....
Enjoy fishing with him while you can, those years go quickly and then he'll have girls on his mind.....
Nice catches.....

Smiles say it all! Great post and awesome memories made.

Nice slabs and you should definitely cherish time spent with your kids while you still can.

Regarding boat control, I noticed that the water was pretty flat. I find it very difficult to control the boat when there is no wind. When there is no wind you have to make smaller more conservative movements because you can't depend on the wind to keep your boat pointing to your spot. When there is no wind it's also very easy to overshoot your spot and if you immediately hit spot lock then you are going to make a lot of noise and turbulence. It just takes a lot more patience and a little more manual control, IMO, when there is little to no wind.

Exactly what we were going through. Was no wind or very light at times. I would be positioned well and the spot lock would kick on after we dropped our lines and mess us up and take our baits out of the zones we wanted to present them in. Also overshot some spots and tried going in a lot slower on 2 power instead of 4 and that helped a bit. When I spot locked it…it would turn the head unit around and wash out the area. Spot lock was our enemy at times yesterday. Using longer rods probably would have helped for sure. May invest in some 12 foot rods…but I imagine if the trolling motor kicks on and pushes your boat forward - there still is the problem of having to adjust your bait and probably have to reel up and re-drop on em’ and those longer rods may feel more cumbersome if the spot lock is going bonkers. At least if I buy longer rods and if the trolling motor does kick on - we don’t blow out the spot (or not as bad being further away when we drop down on em’). We can practice pendulum casting too I guess but tough to do that when there are horizontal branches, unless they’ll come out and chase. Most fish we had to Huber right over their heads and didn’t have many aggressive chasers at all. They where’s coming out for our offerings unless we had the jigs within a foot of them.

Well done, spending time with the kids is priceless.

When there's no wind, I forget spot lock and go manual. Boat moves very little with no wind and you can get the bait to the fish before the boat moves that far. When the boat does move, just a small bump on the TM will keep you on location. Spot lock will definitely spook too many fish with little wind. May seem like it's taking too long but a slow approach will spook less fish.

Cool…Thanks for the tip. I’ll try manual and forget the spot lock when there is no wind and do small bumps like you said nice and slow, if needed.

Thanks to Ron Doutwit too (I now get what you mean by manual adjustments).

Appreciate everyone’s kind comments as well. The TFF community is awesome!

Great catch! Those are some hogs!!!

Very nice! I cannot wait till my boy is out there with me

Looks like a great day on the lake!

About the only time I use spot lock is when I’m taking a fish off or retying

Congrats on raising the boy right! Good stuff!

Best way to not spook the fish is to practicing pitching a bit further out before you get to them. 20 foot underhand pitch is a good target for regulars like you and me! turn the trolling motor WAY down on quiet days and just only bump it the TM when necessary. agree on not using spot lock unless the wind is at least 6 to 8 mph.

Thank you all for the helpful boat control and bait presentation tips!!!

I do something similar but in phases. I start downwind and try pitching and letting my jig drift over the top near end of the pile. I'll then ease forward and vertically jig the end and before moving even further forward will pitch and drift over the top. I typically do this not just to prevent spooking but to give two different presentations -- many times the swimming bait dropping over the top of the pile drifting toward me gets a bit when a still vertical jig doesn't.