[Ouachita]

I hoped to post a large opening post aimed at bringing all of us up to a high level of using various maps to study a lake and figure out where the best bass patterns might develop. I hope everyone will meanwhile familiarize themselves with Tom's bass predictor chart. We'll be using that as well as other tools. Rich (highrider26) launched this idea via PMs. What he didn't know is some months ago I teamed up with a fellow on NAFC's board to do just that with lakes http://forums.fishingclub.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/31210418011/m/33210269521 and rivers http://forums.fishingclub.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/31210418011/m/89310308621 Both are enormous threads with many pages of posts including topo maps. We want to start that theme over using places common to our members here.

The plan is for Tom to join me in marking up maps with labels and commenting on why we are suspecting a particular part of a lake. The maps themselves will be locked. We'll start a companion discussion thread open to all members to comment.

I had the opening post ready to send, a full 3 hour's worth, when I got a PM window. When I'm busy posting I usually click on "cancel", checking PMs ASAP. This time I absently minded clicked to open. That wiped out the previous page. :wack: I'll rebuild it in less time since the thinking part was done. But right now I'm in no mood to try.

It was suggested we begin with Lake Dardanelle, home of Mary, Otter, and at least close to several others of us. I've fished it many years many times, but not recently, so in a way it's a "strange" river-run lake. My hope is members close to it will be able to go out and test our predictions. Hit or miss, we all learn something in each case that should help dissect a fishery better next time.

I will for now put up one poll to decide which bass season is most common to most of us. It's a second tier spawn here, the first interrupted by a surge of cold weather followed by low water temperatures. I should have done this poll before starting out with a spawn thread.

Jim

 

[oldschool]

Jim,

I did reply to this on the pole thread you started and didn't see this post. The members are more interested in there own back yard water then apparently putting another lakes features together and applying it to where they fish. I'm getting burned out, posted a lot of stuff with little or no response, need to back off this for awhile, and go fishing.
Tom

 

[Ouachita]

Yeah, we've got spawn and post-spawn going on here and I need to be getting on them. Good fishing to ya! Jim

 

[oldschool]

Jim, BrittSC requested that we do a SC lake and will pick a candidate to map bass seasonal bass locations. He seems very interested in learning and I'm willing to help.
Going fishing for a few days to regroup. Good luck and enjoy your time on the water, I plan to catch a few and relax a lot.
Tom

 

[TampaCountryBoy]

Tom and Jim enjoy and thanks for all you do for us

 

[Richard]

ok sounds great,maybe a picture of the big one? or two. good luck and have fun.

sorry otter i guess dardanellle is out thanks for the offer tho
rich

 

[OTTER]

I am deeply saddened about Dardanelle :sad2: However this sounds like a hugh project and I'm just amazed that the guys are willing to undertake such a project. It just goes to show why this board is, without a doubt, the best bass fishing board out there. :clap: :clap: What a fantastic group of people we have here :cheers: :cheers: :clap: :clap:

 

[Richard]

this is the greatest place to be. we can't go wrong with All the GREAT people .
thanks again tom and jim.for helping put this together.
rich

 

[hi steel basser]

Jim, I really enjoyed what I read of the post you linked. It was far too complicated for my simple mind. :clap:

 

[Ouachita]

The deal with Dardanelle is it's a river-run lake with stripers that isn't very representative of what most folks here might relate to, I think anyway. An exception would be a small protected part just inside the Johnson Co line near Hickeytown, SE of Clarksville. I used to launch at a little recreation area ramp there and didn't have to go far to catch nice bass. I'd have to give that little spot a good look. It's been several years since being there. Any suggestions you have around the lake that would better represent a wider range of fisheries would be welcomed. Dardanelle is not on our dead lake list :thumbup01:

For that matter I've been hoping to get a lot more feedback from our members on these projects. For one like this we need folks SELLING their lake to us.

OUR part? I learned a long time ago not to leave lake maps up for anyone to mark up. Maps get lost, drawings vanish, and whole threads nose dive having a bunch of folks "in charge". Tom & I would sort of run the project setting it up and making initial calls. We would draw numbered circles and arrows, write up interpretations, then let the discussion roll before someone goes there and tests the theories. Right or wrong calls, everyone learns.That's how I did it on the NAFC board doing this same project. In case ya'll lost them http://forums.fishingclub.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/31210418011/m/33210269521 Drawings, quad, aerial.
http://forums.fishingclub.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/31210418011/m/89310308621/p/1 Drawings, photos, quads, aerials
Right there is a combined 249 post preview of what we want to start here. Those threads just scratched the surface. Whole books can be written on that. I think each type of lake needs to be covered, as well as each type of river.

Ha, but there's a LOT of homework and research that goes into that. Nobody says it's easy or quick. Pros are doing this more and more, long before arriving for a tournament, before scouting, before pre-fishing. By the time they get there they KNOW where to head first depending on the weather.

Jim