Quote Originally Posted by Z-20 View Post
About the only advice I can give you Geo is don’t put the trolling motor down until you’ve marked fish on your graph. The biggest mistake people make is just stop out on a ledge and start fishing and never even graphed it to see if fish were there. And when you don’t get bites, you lose confidence. If the fish aren’t there, you aren’t going to get bit. Period. Learn what to look for on your graphs and once you figure that part out, the rest is easy. The hardest part of ledge fishing is scanning several areas to find that school of fish you’re looking for. But the reward is well worth it once you do. Keep your head down and have patience. Not all ledges/drops are going to be hot. You have to find the right one. Good luck and keep us updated!
Find out when the Corp of Engineers is letting water through the dam and when there is current flowing in the lakes. Some spots need a current before they are effective I've read. Bass being ambush predators need cover to hide in and ambush the shad prey fish. Fish fast into the current also. So the direction that you pull your baits into the fish makes a difference too. Remember that underwater obstructions can act as current breaks and help the fish stay near the current but not directly in the current. That way they can rush out into the current and attack prey fish that are stuck in the current.

Nowadays if you have side-scanning sonar you can actually see the fish and the shad schools if you have a big screen that can be seen even when the sunlight is shining on the screen. Fish are pretty small specs on some smaller screens and hard to see in the sunlight. My old SI unit is small and fish are hard to see when I'm out on the water. But when I record and take the unit back home at night and view the recordings I can see a lot more things on the screen. I use my 27" computer screen to view the recordings and it's a lot easier to see little fish on the screen on my home computer monitor.