Patoka Lake Report for Wednesday last.

Fished the Lick Fork Area of Patoka Lake as well as sections of the Main Lake.

Some areas of the Lick Fork Area between Hoosier Hills and the Dam are very stained. Lots of sediment observed using the 1197 Down imaging sonar. We could see sediment suspended in the water column from the bottom up to about 15 ft above the bottom in 30 ft of water.

Although I'd need to conduct a temperature profile reading to verify that turn over was happening the other evidence tend to suggest that this part of the lake is not stratified anymore. The metalimnion has broken down allowing mixing of the hypolimnium with the epilimnion, IE Turn Over.

We caught some nice 1 lb and 12" long crappie in deeper water over some brush piles that we located.

Using the side-scanning sonar we were able to located quite a few brush piles away from the shoreline. Not all of them had fish though.

Our boat's water temperature gage showed the surface water's temp at around 60 deg F or slightly above that.

The crappie will be more shallow when the water surface temperatures reach 50 deg F. Or so I have been told.

We caught two nice slabs in a row using a ultralight outfit and a curly tail White Grub jig. Just threw it out and let it sink and then reel in really slow and steady. If they are there and in a biting mood they will wack it hard. Both fish we used a net to get them out of the water. Why take any chances. But then later I saw that the net had a huge hole in it. It's time to get the darning needle out and fix that hole in the fishing net.

I took the rifle up to the shooting range and had two shots right on the 1" bull eye and each was touching the other. It took me a while to finally get on paper but once I did that it was smooth sailing. Two shots hit the paper about 4.5" high and about 1/2 to the right of the center. I adjusted 18 clicks down and 2 clicks to the left and the next two shots were dead on the bulls eye. I put the gun away after those last two shots. Can't do any better than that. Oh I was shooting at 100 yards.

I had some work performed on this older gun the last two years and it's a tact driver now. Deer season opens in two days this coming Saturday. There were lots of guys sighting in their deer rifles. Many were using black power in their muzzle loaders and after they shot it was hard to see the target for a while. But the guy next to me was shooting Smokeless Powder and it was a lot cleaner burning.