# Alum Creek Reservoir



## BWW (Oct 28, 2017)

I got out on Alum on February 22 and 23rd. Water was chocolate milk around Cheshire and little cleaner down by the dam.

It was a relaxing day on the water uninterrupted by any fish. I tried jigging raps, live bait, trolling for musky, jerkbaits. . . Eventually broke down and went to a slip bobber with a minnow 15' down. May have had a couple nibbles on the bobber, but nothing connected.

I marked fish all over the lake. Most were pelagic. Suspended at 15' down in 25 feet of water seemed to be a popular hang-out for the fish.

Here is my question: _What are all the marks on my sonar?_ I know they are fish -- but what kind? From the size of the marks, they look big. But then I dropped my jigging rap, and it looked big too. Are they suspended gizzard shad?


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## Gottagofishn (Nov 18, 2009)

When the water is as cold as it is I usually don't see a lot of marks. Could it have been a return signal from the dirty water?


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## BWW (Oct 28, 2017)

I don’t think so. I’ll try to upload a screenshot.


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## BWW (Oct 28, 2017)

Screenshots


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## pawcat (Oct 24, 2011)

Don't know the answer to your problem but maybe you should look at your transducer, make sure its clean, check for tare, dirt, mud, etc, you should always keep your transducer clean before entering the water, you never know what you might pick up from the road. a dirty transducer will give false readings, make sure its level with the water line also.
level transducer.


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## Shortdrift (Apr 5, 2004)

Those are fish! What kind? Who knows but it could be shad, of which there are plenty of large ones in Alum. Get a 3 or 4/0 weighted treble, vertical Jig vigorously and see what comes up. If it is anything other than a shad, carefully release it. If you have triuble raising it, then it is a musky and should be able to break your rod, your line or tear free. If it is a shad, take as many as you can and continue until your live well and splash well are full, then go home and use a strong deodorizer on you contaminated boat.












or


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## Joyo (Dec 30, 2007)

DI window is catfish


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## Draggin along (Nov 8, 2012)

I'm thinking shad. Was around the docks a couple times in the last week and there was a lot down there. Birds were doing a lot of diving. And I agree, they grow pretty big in alum.


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## float4fish (Feb 15, 2017)

Pic 3/3 the arc is elongated along the bottom and broken mid screen due to boat speed. I would agree the others are fish, but species would be nearly impossible to tell. Educated guess at best.


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## ebay_bob (Jan 7, 2008)

Those look like white bass to me. Looks like you kept the boat on top of them in that third pic while bouncing a jig on them.


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## Joyo (Dec 30, 2007)

The 3 larger marks at 15-25 fow are MORE than likely catfish ( in the DI window ) Both hummingbird and Lowrance guru's who travel around giving seminars will tell you its catfish, and some of the good ones are retired navy guys who really understand sonar


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## Paul Mac (Sep 20, 2014)

BWW said:


> Screenshots


Water temp?


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## BWW (Oct 28, 2017)

My unit registered 36.7 degrees. I talked to three different anglers who register everything from 33 to 35, to 37. On one boat, two different units registered two different temperatures.


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## float4fish (Feb 15, 2017)

Best thing about these types of post is the continued education on sonar interpretation. Thanks for sharing.


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## Brahmabull71 (Jul 30, 2014)

BWW said:


> My unit registered 36.7 degrees. I talked to three different anglers who register everything from 33 to 35, to 37. On one boat, two different units registered two different temperatures.


Correct. Garmin 34.1 and Lowrance was 35.3 in the south pool.

Being that spread throughout the water column tells me Shad, but who knows! Best you can do is give it a little while with varying approaches and move on unless you have an underwater camera. Nice work getting out! Wish I could have stayed!


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## ReadHeaded Hunter (Apr 17, 2007)

This was what my depth finder looked like all year last year. With the explosion of vegetative growth in that lake, the shad populations have been unreal. We were cruising under the Cheshire bridge last year when the water was clear and you could see them stacked abutment to abutment all the way down. We bowfish at night as well and we see schools by the thousand. Good for fish populations, but doesnt make for very hungry predators.


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## ski (May 13, 2004)

I went by the Alum spillway today and crews had heavy equipment in the spillway just upstream from the bridge. They pretty much had built an earthen dam across the spillway and had it reinforced with steel. Looks like they are placing a 2'-3' diameter pipe below the waterline. Very little water was coming out the bypass. I wonder how long they will have it blocked off. Anybody have any more information on this?
sk


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## lacdown (Apr 25, 2007)

Looks like they were pouring concrete at the spillway earlier today... hope they're not creating another walk bridge there....


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## Workingman (Jan 21, 2016)

They are laying a pipe across underneath the river. I'm pretty sure when they're done, you won't even know they did anything


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## Skip Hoffman (Mar 19, 2014)

look up Lance Valentine on you tube he is a lowrance guy, just went to a seminar in huron last weekend, he says if you dont see yellow on the marks they are non game species (shad carp etc)


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## Lewzer (Apr 5, 2004)

I was always under the impression that the sonars could only tell scaled from non-scaled species.
Catfish, trout, etc.. have a different sonar reflection than a walleye, bass, crappie shad...
Kind of similar to a mud vs. hard gravel bottom.

Of course I'm still running an X-85 on my boat. I'm about 4 generations behind but it does what I need it to do.


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