[Jason_B]

Nice. I’m jealous of how you spend your free time vs how I’ve been spending mine. As I find myself becoming a geek with a trolling motor and a graph some of yall have been inspiring me to get back into wade fishing which is where this whole spotted sea trout thing began for me.

[Jason_B]

sailboat? initially thought lafitte skiff but looks like a little keel on there.

So, an interesting question. I plopped this into a cad program so I could scale the thing by using the known 65′ from center to right edge of screen. about a 9.5′ beam and a 21′ length. And when I took that second measurement I realized that the length on screen was not how long it physically was, but how fast you drove by it. Faster would have made it shorter, slower longer. Finally, the question. Is there a speed that you scan at that makes things appear true to scale? Is this a setting somewhere in my unit that I can go see what its at and modify?

I usually scan at minimum throttle and things seem to scale – tires are round and not oval. And yea, I could go look in the manual, I will anyways. But for group learning sake thought I would put that out there.

[Jason_B]

I almost did this this afternoon but I only had about 2 hours between getting off work and doing family stuff. Did west lake p instead. Just the normal west lake p stuff, so nothing worth typing a report for.

[Jason_B]

As to your question about doing this without a scanner. I’m running about a 50:1 ratio on finding a limitable school and maybe about a 7:1 ratio on finding a single when I scan these piles. As in 1 school found per 50 piles scanned.

You need a scanner or luck to succeed out there. Hell, it’s a grind even with a scanner.

[Jason_B]

“ I am unsure if they were fish that I was seeing,”

He looka lika man.

[Jason_B]

Clear, hot, fresh water in the south with bream beds. Probably not a reservoir because I think those would either be clear and cold (Pickwick) or hot and muddy (Grenada), but not clear and hot at the same time… are we in Central Florida?

[Jason_B]

The 8′ depth is throwing me off. If I ignore that, I would guess:

Salinity: none

Water clarity: Clear b/c of aquatic grass at that depth.

Structure/cover: Sandy bottom, with bits of aquatic grass, steep bank to your left with a dock on it.

Species that swim there: Bluegill

The state it is most likely in: Mississippi

[Jason_B]

Adding a reply rather than editing so it doesn’t look like I cheated.

Wondering if bluegill might bed deeper in clearer water.

That grass on a sandy bottom looks like what I’ve seen in some spring fed ponds between picayune and lucedale. Maybe there’s one of those big enough to have a decent ramp for a rig that would be equipped with a scanner like that? The I-55 lakes are muddy and don’t have docks except for barnett.

I’ll edit this one though: are those bream up under the dock?

• This reply was modified 1 week, 6 days ago by  Jason_B.

[Jason_B]

This report holds true with how I did on the same day at the same place. Except I didn’t find any TT on the way back in. Probably checked 20 wads of hyacinth around the ship channel. They weren’t there

Looking to get back out there next weekend.

Edit: the number of boats were in fact insane. I hate how some people (mostly guides) act how they own the water. I guess dealing with the BS is part of what we signed up for. Especially on a big fishing holiday.

• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 3 days ago by  Jason_B.

[Jason_B]

La France is cool but is a little harder to get to with Hwy 90 being closed at Pearlington. Bayou Caddy is actually closer than La France coming from Louisiana – because of that closure you have to double back and head West right about the time you’re almost to Bayou Caddy. I haven’t launched at Bayou Caddy in some number of decades but I might this weekend for a family/friends thing in Waveland. I’ve launched out of Pass Christian many times to get to EBM, none recently, but it was always a good setup and a guy I know over there still uses it regularly.

Bring a $5 for the automatic gate at La France. You have to have exactly a $5 and the bait shop doesn’t open to make change until 6:00. I think the other two are still free being municipal.

I’m pretty sure you need flares on board to operate in MS waters. Something some LA boaters may not be used to having. Could be a good excuse to get some anyways.

[Jason_B]

Oh, you were looking for “boat” while I was trying to figure out how the former captain likes his coffee.

I thought those spots may have been pickups for a live bait shrimper in a lafitte skiff. I considered trim tabs but they were under the hull and not behind it. There’s a better term for this, but the “platform around the outboard” could be present and silted over. The weird keel stood out more to me though so I went sailboat.

I’ll stop.

[Jason_B]

My neighbor is a bonafied bass dude who fishes that area regularly. He says that grass is worth checking out. But not for bass. Or maybe bass aren’t the most prevalent thing out there? Draw your own conclusions, not many hints needed. After I get back from vacation I’m going to try to guilt him into taking me out there to pay me back for giving him the keys to my gravel pit. It would be nice if someone else drove the boat for once.

Edit: I think you misquoted the movie. Aren’t I supposed to bring back 100 scalps to repay my debit?

• This reply was modified 5 days, 14 hours ago by  Jason_B.

[Jason_B]

This is fun.

As far as what made these, you tipped your hat towards “perch beds” but didn’t bite on my bluegill guess. Perch could mean a lot – including crappie to some. I know crappie to spawn on brush, vertical banks or gravel – so not them here. Still thinking something in the bream family. Shellcracker maybe. I saw a few bass bed guesses, but I don’t think those are as dense as this.

And while I don’t think they made these beds, to expand on what species swims here. I’ll say that smallmouth probably do.

Could be wrong on some of the above, going off of what I think to be true b/c googling any of it to confirm is probably against the point here.

[Jason_B]

Hot tip for those not fluent in meteorology. Copy and paste that into your AI agent and ask it more practical questions about where and when you’re launching, where you’re headed and what time you’ll be back.

[Jason_B]

Yep, looked about like your second pic. Except I was too giddy to take a picture.

In hindsight, I should have run and gunned more till I found them. My problem is I’ll stop and cast when I see trash and things that look like they should hold fish on the sidescan rather than moving on to look for actual fish on the scanner. The former did work for the first fish, but the latter was much less grindy.