Steve Welch – I’m Back
After a long hiatus, I am back guiding on a part-time basis. Friday, Saturday and Sundays only, for now. I need two more years to officially retire and get my pension then I will guide more.
I still have my big tiller boat so very comfortable and have it outfitted with several new depth finders. I now have six units on this boat and it is loaded up like no other. I have four Lowrance units all networked to keep all my GPS locations straight and I have nearly 8000 waypoints on this system between Lake Shelbyville and Kentucky Lake. I like the Navionics mapping to keep me right on ledges to be able to troll, which is what we are doing now. I was not happy with Lowrance side-imaging anymore so I got a Hummingbird 15 in. Solex for side imaging and the Lake master mapping. It is very helpful on Kentucky Lake as it shows small secondary creeks in more detail. Anyway, now I have multiple mapping to look at because I also have a 12in. Garmin up on my nose for Livescope and if you haven’t seen this in action you really should. My wife says it is like playing Pac-Man. You can see fish approaching your bait and actually take your jig in real-time.
Like I said, there is no other boat rigged like this anywhere. I have seven batteries to power everything. Three onboard chargers all wired together– just plug in when you get home. Onboard air system with air lines run inside the gunnels and ports located all over the boat to plug in your bait tank anywhere you want to sit it. I run three tanks, two Engels, and a large shad tank that recirculates water through charcoal and filters on a timer that does this every five minutes. My bait can stay in the boat for several days and I can easily carry 30 dozen. No D-cell batteries for me and I have tons more air.
I will be putting a weekly fishing report out since we are in the summer months so patterns will remain the same for several weeks. I am looking for that first shad hatch and that is close. The walleye/white bass bite will get better then. The current pattern of beating the weeds early with blade baits will collapse if the lake starts to fall back towards normal summer pool. No worries because pulling spinners on line counters is fun and anyone can do it, young or old.
The one with the most waypoints wins this style of fishing because offshore stumps hold fish and you need to know what angle, time of day, and wind direction each stump works best at. I have spent years collecting these offshore stumps for just this style of fishing. I am glad I kept my Lowrance units. I have dumped 12,000 waypoints on it and it doesn’t slow it down at all. My new Hummingbird I tried to put the 8000 waypoints I currently have on my Lowrances and it turned it into a ninety-year-old man…very slow. So now I just use it for Mega side-imaging.
So hop in the boat with one of the lakes’ most knowledgeable guides who has been doing this for nearly 27 years and knows this lake from one end to the other. Has fished in nine Crappie U.S.A. Classics and cashed a check in three against the top teams in the country. Won several local and regional tourneys before turning his attention to just guiding. Been featured in several in-state and national magazines. Has given seminars at just about every fishing show in the state and has over 200 articles in print in several magazines.
