Latest / Sac-A-Lait Talk / TICFAW RIVER SAC-A-LAIT SECRETS

Transcript

TICFAW RIVER SAC-A-LAIT SECRETS · Sac-A-Lait Talk

• Dwain Turner: Welcome back to Sakalay Talk, the podcast where we skip the small talk and go straight after the heavyweights. Those absolute slabs hiding right beneath our noses. I'm your host Dwayne Turner coming to you live from right here in South Louisiana. Today we are taking a solo journey down a river that is famous for its weaking crowds, its fast boats, and its beautiful scenery. But incredibly misunderstood by the average fisherman. We are talking about the Tikfal River secrets. Plus Billy Adams joins the show to discuss his river secrets for catching slab Sakalay in the Tikfall. Now, if you've ever launched your boat at the prop stop or spent a Saturday island down the Livingston or Tanchibaho parish, you know the Tikfo looks like a recreational paradise. You've got high performance boats tearing up the straits and platoon boats lining the shallows. On the surface it looks too loud, too busy, and too disrupted to be a premier cyclade destination. But that is secret number one, my friends. The Tikfall hides its treasures in plain sight beneath those rolling boat wakes and the surface chop lies a complex network of deep bluff banks, underwater drop offs and massive hardwood trees that have settled into the channel over the decades. In this 45-minute breakdown, it's just you and me. I'm going to personally pull back the curtain on this river. We're going to discuss exactly how to read the unique water conditions of the Tickfall, how to use the chaotic weekend boat traffic to your absolute advantage, the precise electronic strategies you need to find the hidden timber. And the exact jig setups that produce slabs when the river gets tough. Get a notebook for yourself a fresh cup of coffee and let's get into today's slab bites. To catch fish on the Tikfal, you have to understand that this isn't your typical slow moving shallow bayou. The tickfall has personality, and it changes dramatically depending on how far north or south you are. Up north above Highway twenty two, the river is tighter, faster, and defined by high clay bluffs. Down south, as you approach Lake Marpal, it fans out, the current slows down, and it merges into that classic brassish tea colored environment. But regardless of where you put your boat in, the key to finding Sakalay in this system comes down to two words. Steep drop offs. When you're running down the river, look closely at the banks where you see those high clay bluffs on the outside bends of the river. That's where the current has spent centuries carving out deep holes. You can be idling along a shallow flat side of the river that's only three or four feet deep, and within the span of a boat length, the bottom drops out into eighteen, twenty two, or even twenty five feet of water. In the late summer and early fall, as we transition right into these cooler nights, those deep holes are where the Sakhalake seek refuge. They want the stability of that deep water. But here's the mistake I see 90% of river anglers make. They see a 20 foot hole on their depth finder. They drop a line right down to the bottom and they sit there wondering why they aren't catching anything but catfish. Sacalae are structure oriented predators. They aren't going to just sit on a buried mud bottom in twenty feet of water. They're looking for the house within the hole. Over the years those big trees lining the clay brush lose their footing and slide right down into the deep bends. Massive oaks, ancient cypresses, they sink straight to the bottom of those deep channels, creating subterranean apartment complexes for bait fish and shrimp. Your job as an angler isn't just to find the deep water, it's to find the Pacific branch, the Pacific log, or the isolated root ball sitting right on the edge of that current drop. When you find a sunken tree sitting in fifteen to twenty feet of water on a tickfall bin, you have just found a gold mine. But navigating that timber requires a precise approach and it requires you to understand how the river interacts with that wood. Let's talk about how to position your boat perfectly so you don't spook the school. Let's tackle the elephant in the room, the boat traffic. I get emails all the time from guys saying Duane, I tried to fish the tickfaw on a Saturday, but the jet skis and the wakeboats like to have drowned me. The fish stopped biting as soon as the sun came up. I'm here to tell you that the boat traffic is actually your best friend if you know how to interpret it. Think about it from a biological perspective. When a massive wakeboat comes cruising down the Tigfal, it pushes pushes huge v volume of water against the shadow banks, the cypress knees, and the marshy grass edges. That sudden rush of water washes everything out, grass shrimp, minnows, insects, and small shag get pulled off the safety of the shadow flats and dragged right into the main river channel. The Sakhalai know this. They aren't stupid. They don't leave the river just because it gets loud. Instead they back off the shallow banks and lock themselves tightly into the canopy of that deep submerged timber we just talked about. They sit underneath those sunken logs, completely shielded from the surface chaos, and they just wait for the boat wakes to deliver a buffet of disoriented bay fish straight to their mouths. So when the river gets rough, do not pack up and head to the launch. Instead, move out to those twelve to fifteen foot depths right on the edge of the channel drops. Now, how do we fish it when the water is churning? You have to throw casting completely out the window. If you try to cast a light jig on a tickfall when the current is moving and the boats are creating waves, your jig is going to swing wildly through the water column. It will never stay in the strike zone long enough, and you're going to spend half your day snagged in the branches. The secret is absolute vertical alignment. I pull up to those deep structures from down current. You always want your boat pointed directly into the flow of the river. Use your trolling motor to hover directly over the top of the sunken wood. I use a 10 or 12 foot jigging pole. I don't reel. I just drop the jig straight down alongside the boat, tracking it on my electronics until. It passes right through the branches of the submerged tree. By keeping your line completely vertical, you've maintained absolute control over the jig. When a wave hits your boat, your broad tip moves up and down naturally, giving that jig a perfect subtle swimming action right in the face of a resting slab. You aren't fighting the river, you're letting the river do the work for you. Let's talk about what to tie on your line. Because the Tikfall has a very specific water profile, it's a bracket system heavily influenced by tidal movements from Lake Marpal and rainfall up north. Most of the time it carries that beautiful tea colored tannic stain. It's not muddy, but it's dark. In tea colored water, light penetration changes quickly as you go deep. A color that looks bright at two feet looks completely invisible at 15 feet. To trigger a reaction bite from a heavy river sacchate, you need contrast and you need flash. My absolute one-color combo for the Tickfall is a solid black and chartchouse split-tail plastic on a heavy head. I prefer a one hundred sixteenth ounce jig head, but if the tide is pulling hard or the river current is up, do not be afraid to step up to a one eighth ounce head. You want that jig to drop fast and cut through the current straight to the target. The solid black body provides a clean silhouette against the dark water, and that chirpchuse tail glows like a neon sign when it catches what little sunlight filters down through the depths. Now if the sun is high and blazing and the water has a bit more clarity to it, I switch over to what I call my river chrome pattern. Clear or smoke colored plastics loaded with heavy silver, blue and violet glitter. It mimics the natural grass shrimp and tiny river shiners perfectly. As we head deeper into the fall transition right now in late September, the water temperatures are finally taking a dip. This completely changes the game during the dead of summer. Those fish are lethargic in the deepest hose. But right now they are starting to wake up. They are moving out of the main river channel holes. and staging right at the mouth of the major tributaries. If you want a specific spot blueprint to look at this weekend, go check out where the Blood River or the Naubany River feed into the main system. Though junctions are absolutely highway interchanges for bait fish right now. Look for secondary points and the first deep wood structure just inside those bayou mounts. The fish are moving in to intercept the shad and if you can present a vertical jig right in their pad, you're going to feel a live well in short order. As we wrap up today's solo breakdown, I wanna leave you with a quick thought on the mindset required to fish the Tik Fall River successfully. River fishing isn't like fishing a stagnant pond or a controlled reservoir. It's alive. It changes daily based on wind, tide, rain, and boat traffic. The secret to mastering the tick foe isn't a secret lore or a magic spot. It's adaptability. If you go out there expecting a quiet, smooth ride and perfectly still fish, you're going to get frustrated. But if you embrace the current, use the weekend wakes to stir up the bait, lock your boat vertically over deep timber, and trust your heavy jigs. You will unlock a fishery that most people don't even know exists. Make sure your trolling motor batteries are topped off before you head out. Double check your electronics and tie on those high contrast jigs. Thank you so much for joining me for this solo episode of Sacolade Talk. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button, leave a review on your favorite podcast app, and share this episode with your favorite fishing partner. Coming up next, local weekend warrior Billy Adams joins the show to share his secrets for catching slab sakolet on the tickfall. Welcome back to Sackley Talk. I'm your host, Dwayne Turner. Today we're cracking the code on a South Louisiana favorite that's making a massive comeback, the Tikfall River. Joining us is a man who's been pulling slabs out of these waters for over a decade, local weekend warrior Billy Adams. He's dropping by to share his secrets on the structural targets, perfect water conditions, and the exact jig setups to load your boat right now. Let's get into the secrets of the tick file. ⁓ yeah. ⁓ I've been fishing the ⁓ Tickfall River for about ten years. Like you said, about a decade. Okay. ⁓ Billy, ⁓ welcome to the show, Billy. Okay. Hey man, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing great, man. Thank you for having. Thank you for having. Thank you for ⁓ giving us a f a few minutes to ⁓ sh share your knowledge with us. ⁓ Billy, what our ⁓ what I wanted to ask you, ⁓ What makes the Tikfall such a unique and rewarding challenge for Sakalay anglers? If ⁓ I don't know, the sh the the layout of it's different than ⁓ the say the chifuncta. If you fish the chifuncta, it doesn't really have those sudden drop offs that come off those cypress trees like that. That the soccer like to get up in and ambush ambush a lot of predators. So when they start to stack up and stuff, they'll get up on the the root balls like the tree'll be three foot behind three ⁓ behind the tree'll be about three foot deep. next to the tree'll be about six, seven foot deep and then it have that sudden drop off to twenty feet. To funct it really doesn't do that. And I think it provides more of an ambush area for the fish to to get up on the bait fish when they come through, you know? Right. So it's just a h it's a whole different it's a whole different ball game. I mean you could you could pull up to a tree on a thick fall and see nothing on the live scope and swing around there, drop your jig down and all of a sudden it just come out the woodwork. Yeah, so that's what's so that's what's y unique about the tech file. And ⁓ that's what's unique for me. Right. That's that's what's unique for me. And it has a lot more it has a lot more canals and stuff that come off of it, a lot more run out. A lot more different ⁓ a lot more different opportunities to try different techniques, you know. There's different ways. ⁓ okay. Do you find yourself targeting the upper river bends? Stick Or sticking closer to the lower bayou style banks. I do a little bit of both. I I got spots that I I go to in in in all around it. ⁓ most of the time I'm in bins, runouts. ⁓ the North Albany. I go up to North Albany some. Yeah. ⁓ fish the ⁓ structures. Do pretty good during the summertime on ⁓ the docks. And I can see ⁓ I went there last week. Matter of fact, right with me and you went. You can see some starting to get up around the ⁓ the ⁓ some of the bigger ones are starting to come up to the ⁓ to the docks and stuff. Doesn't you know doesn't really tell me much, but they're not ⁓ they're kinda in the middle of ⁓ they're not ready for ⁓ they're ready for the fall the fall because I'm sure they're boiling down there. The water was ninety-nine degrees last time I came. Right. And it's just First this last time I went it was eighty two, so that's a big difference. Yes, it's starting to dry. They know they they know they know what it is. And when it when that water gets about sixty eight degrees, it's on. Yeah, it'll be on then. It's ⁓ Hey, ⁓ let me ask you this. What what are the first three indicators you look for to establish a pattern quickly on on the tick phone? Are you looking for water clarity, current, structure? I I do look for a little current. I look for ⁓ I do look for current 'cause I mean ⁓ structure because I'm more of a structural fisherman. I try to ⁓ I try to do open water, you know it's a little harder, but ⁓ it's a little more challenging. But mostly ⁓ I look for structure, current, water water clarity changing in the water color is a good thing, good sign. And I look for ⁓ bait. Definitely looking for bait. If I'm seeing fish and I'm not seeing bait, Most of the time those fish aren't gonna they're not gonna do nothing. If you see bait balls coming by every now and then when you see ⁓ fish, th those fish are if they're not biting when you drop your jig down, they just wait for a bait ball to come by. They're gonna bite. Right. It's just natural for ⁓ Now, ⁓ Billy, typically are you finding these slabs suspended tight against the ⁓ deeper cypress knees? Or are they holding out on the edges of of of the drop offs? It just it just really it just really depends. ⁓ the bigger bigger fish, when I say bigger, I mean like over a pound and a half. They're gonna be they're gonna be out alone. They're gonna be roaming. The ones up to about two pounds, they'll be two four or five of ⁓ together. And then every now and then you'll see one that's gotta be two and a half plus pounds. But you can't good luck getting to bite anything, but yeah, he's by himself. He's not doing anything. He's just out there just in twelve twenty foot of water, twelve foot down. Just sitting there. Or sometimes they'll actually they'll act the the bigger fish like to be for some reason like to be about three to four foot underwater in the deeper water. Okay. I don't know. Right. Well ain't figured that out yet. Hey, we all trying to figure that out. Hey, ⁓ what is the secret to pulling a ⁓ finicky slab out from the tightest gaps in the wood without spooking the rest of the school? Don't get close to ⁓ and hold your bait there. And ⁓ if there's a if there's more fish around it, then that's why the bigger fish don't that's one of them bigger fish don't want to be around all them little schools of fish. Because they don't they don't they don't feel like fighting for that. They're not trying to be competitive with all them other fish for bait. So they they'll they'll separate themselves from the other one. So when you say a slab, like a twelve inch slab or something, you know, that's a good fish. When you get a good fish like that, that's gonna be you can catch those in some in some pockets and you'll catch big, big ones. You know, I caught a two three in ⁓ in a tickfall with had about a I don't know, probably a pile of about fifteen fish, but he was probably the biggest one in there. But ⁓ they ⁓ they don't usually get in like that because they don't like they don't like to be competitive with other fish. So they're by themselves. Right. So you just gotta basically when you see them big fish like that, they don't they don't want all that jerking and moving around and everything. They just they just wanna ease up to it. If they like it, they're gonna eat it. Sometimes you can shake it a little bit, you know, make them make them interested. You can pull away from ⁓ I've had that happen. Pull it up, pull it up, and then they just leave it alone. But 90% of the time when you pull it up like that, they ain't they're not gonna get it, even if they fall on it. Right. They just want it sitting there. So Hey Billy, the river can muddy up fast after North Shore rains. How do you adjust your strategy when you encounter a heavy mudline or shifting watercolors? Go straight to the river. To the river? I don't I don't I I don't yeah, I don't hit those runoffs as hard and I don't hit the ⁓ the big canals or the big waterways as quite as hard. I'll sh I'll stick straight to the river. And ⁓ usually I can get inside those bins and where there's some structure at and the water's not. The water doesn't really ever get really, really bad there. It'll get bad on the salmoning and coming out of those runoffs, but ⁓ it pretty much washes out, goes to the moth park pretty quick. So it doesn't really get really, really bad. It'll get stained, it'll stay stained most of year. But it don't get what you call like dirty, you know, like if you Go on one of those runouts or the Talbany. Right now is really bad. It looks like chocolate milk. But it's just ⁓ it just depends on the water depth and h you know how hot it's been. You know, if there's a any good water movement coming out, you know. Anything like that. Right. Billy, ⁓ how How do you adjust your presentation or look for hidden pockets when the main river gets crowded? That's a good question. That river stays crowded all year long with ⁓ a lot of boat traffic. Right. You gotta fight the waves. You gotta fight the people. I mean, you gotta fight the fish that don't wanna bite 'cause right now it's like when you fishing out there in the summertime right now, you bouncing around trying to keep your boat off the dock. Trying to keep your foot off the trees and people just fly right past you. They'll come by you three or four times. And ⁓ the fish are just stubborn. You ca you gotta sit there and try to hold the jig in front of a bouncing boat. It's really, it's really, really a challenging thing. You've seen it. It's really challenging. Yeah, it is. That's that's one reason why I don't do that ⁓ the tournaments during the summertime like that, 'cause it's too much traffic. Billy, let's go dark side for a minute, okay? Mm-hmm. You ⁓ you have a special ⁓ event coming up. Tell our listeners about it. That's coming up. We have ⁓ soccerly ⁓ tournament. It's called North Shore Soccer Lee Tournament. It's ⁓ you can find us on Facebook or the web. We have a website, North Shore Soccerly dot com. ⁓ it's October the tenth. We have it's a hundred dollars a boot. We ⁓ we're gonna give We're gonna have food, it's five dollars a plate for everybody that's ⁓ that's gonna be entering the ⁓ the tournament. ⁓ I have a pre registration set up on it. I don't get very many people to pre register. It's absolutely free. It just it just helps me figure out how many people I gotta feed. You know, didn't wanna have to charge anything to f to feed people, but I'm I'm throwing away a lot of food at the end. So I need to try to figure out a way to get people to ⁓ pre register so I ⁓ made a deal with everybody. If they pre registered then they I'd give ⁓ a thirty minute lead time in the morning. Only in the morning to come and check in a little late. If they were late. I mean if you have a flat tire or something going on or something you can call me and we can work it out. But other than that, just trying to give them a little bonus thing to it. But Yeah, it's all a hundred percent payout. No, we don't make nothing off of it. Everything's ⁓ you know, it's all goes to the angles. So we have a first place, second place, third place. thinking about if I get more than twenty five boats and maybe do in the fourth place. But I have plaques for first, second, and third. And ⁓ we also have a big fish, little fish ⁓ pot. And ⁓ we're doing that. That's ten dollars each, but each person has to enter that. ⁓ can't can't do it a boat. It's two people per boat. ⁓ you have to be an adult to fish it. ⁓ or at least seventeen years old. and ⁓ trying to think of what else I got. It's at Riverside Marina in ⁓ Killing, Louisiana. It's ⁓ daylight, safe daylight, I'll determine the time. I'll let everybody roll out and then you have to be back. I think I think it's three thirty is when I have this set for. If you're not back by three thirty, you automatically disqualify. You have to you could be there at three twenty five. So don't be getting your fish out the boat, you know? Come up there and ⁓ put your chip back up. Let us know you're there. Right. And you go get your fish and stuff. So Yep. And ⁓ Guess that's about it. Okay. ⁓ with a big fish, ⁓ the big fish pot. ⁓ when you win the big fish, ⁓ Gator Tracks. Kent with Gator Tracks is ⁓ donating ⁓ some ⁓ he don't usually donate some ⁓ Some hydroturf like ⁓ you put on your boat. So the big fish women usually get that. So Okay. That's our big problem. And what is that website again if if ⁓ our if our listeners wanna ⁓ enter the tournament? North Shore Socolade Tournament dot com. You don't have to pre register, I just ask people to pre register. It kinda helps me ⁓ get everything organized and straightened up. Tightened up. Okay, well we're looking forward to it. ⁓ and I'll I'll definitely be there ⁓ covering it. Yeah, hopefully we can get you on a boat. Yeah. I'm lo I'm working on it. I'm working on it. That'd be great, man. I'd love to do it. I'd love to do it. Well, ⁓ let's get back, let's get back to the tickfall, Billy. ⁓ let me ask you this. ⁓ if you can only tie one Pacific jig color and weight combination to handle the unique tin of the tickfall river. What are you ⁓ tying on? That ⁓ that that slow solely depends on now the style of it. You're not talking you're talking about the color's a different thing, but if you you know, co water's gonna make make my make my choice for everything. But ⁓ as far as if I'm if I'm vertical jigging, I could I do a hair t hair jig all day long. But if ⁓ if I'm retrieving and shooting docks or something like that, then yeah, I'm using something like a Bobby Garland. Or something like that. Something that's got a little bit more movement into it. I have caught them on ⁓ the the you ever seen those synthetic jigs? Yeah, I've seen them. Yes. I've caught I've caught them on the synthetic jigs. And me personally, I'm ⁓ I'm tying on ⁓ I I fish 99% of my time with 130 seconds jigs. And that's just because even if I'm fishing with a heavier weight and trying to chase some, because I can control once I get the weights just to get it down there, then the jig's always falling behind it. So I can control that jig how I want it to fall. All I gotta do is stop my line and let that jig just slowly fall into its face. And that slow presentation is is is the key for me. Yes. But ⁓ as far as colors go, I like bleeding shad. I do. I like I like the bleeding shad on the on the thick roll river and I can use that in in in a mercury kind of stained water or ⁓ or you know, a clear water. But I just I use a lot of bleeding shad, blue ice, stuff like that. I don't use black and chartreuse, even though it's a great color, but I think them soccer leaves have seen ⁓ fifteen million of those. So they've they've seen them a million times. Yes, they have. It's it's it's been better than their DNA. Billy, you're you're you're known as the weekend warrior on the tickfall. What is your ⁓ your all time favorite memory or personal best cycle that you pulled out of the tickfall? I got two off the tickfall that weighed two three. ⁓ they were pretty good. I got one last August. And ⁓ I've caught some one eights, some one threes, one fours and stuff like that. But ⁓ me and my friend James Henderson went ⁓ last year. In October. It was about October the twentieth. Right, right, right after a cool right after a front came through. It was like we ain't gonna catch nothing. We went over there, we caught we had 97 keepers and we was keeping everything that was 10 inches and up. So we had some pretty good ones. We we didn't have no real big ones. I think maybe the biggest one might have been one three or something, one two, but ⁓ we had some decent fish. And those fish were really just stacked up. Man, we stay we stayed in ⁓ I think it w we caught all those fish in two spots. So Yep. It was ⁓ they were pretty stacked up pretty good. And they were hungry. At that point you could take the find them with the live scope and see they're about eight foot down, count your rate on your bait, see how long it takes to get before they get to it and just throw the live scope to the side and just keep throwing over there. Right. Billy, let's talk about your setup. What rod length and action are you relying on most when fishing the ⁓ when fishing top that too depends on I'm sorry. No, go ahead. I I that too depends on ⁓ what what type of fishing I'm doing. If I'm dock shooting, ⁓ I got anything from I got some ⁓ some salter poles, so I use a ⁓ I have a seven, ⁓ eight. And a nine, I think, for that. And that's what I shoot my ⁓ that's what I shoot docks with on those. And then I have a ⁓ fourteen foot that I use and an eleven foot that I use. If I'm out there trying to, you know, vertical drag something, ⁓ the fourteen foot's more more or less for like ⁓ if you go chasing them down and stuff. You know, just get you out there a little further away from those spooky fish because those big ones, man, they don't they don't allow you to get close to them. They'll you'll you'll see ⁓ out at you ranging out thirty feet, you'll see them out there forty feet. And you'll you'll start getting within eighteen to twenty feet from ⁓ and they're they're just gonna ease off. They don't I don't know if it's the trolling motor, I don't know if it's the radar, I don't I don't know what it is, but they'll they'll sense that man, and they'll just they'll just move on. So you gotta kinda have them longer poles for that situation. Kind of hold it in front of their face. Right. Let's see. Billy, how how heavily do you rely on electronics on on the tech file? If you ain't scooping, you're hooping. That's all I'm gonna tell you about that one. Because ⁓ it's ⁓ I'm sure I can go out there and catch some because I I know the Thickfall River. I know where they got spots at and stuff. The problem with with not having a live scope is if you go someplace today and catch some and ⁓ you go back there tomorrow and you you throw your pole back down there, you think there's nothing here, but there's actually fish there. They just changed either the baits change, the oxygen change. Something something about that area has changed with the fish and then they're not active. Yeah, I see fish, man. You could when you you learn a lot with live scope, you can sit there and watch fifteen hundred fish come up to your bait and chase it. And you just gotta move on. You gotta tell yourself to move on, you know. It's just what it is. And you could go down twenty feet and catch some more. So pee a lot of people get disappointed when they when they sit there and they're trying to fish without live scope and they don't see that. They don't see actually what's happening. And they're like, man, I I know I caught fish here yesterday. What's what's what's changed? Well, the water's changed. Something's changed in that water. Either bait stopped coming through there. The oxygen's ⁓ a likely reason right now, because the water is so hot. If you don't have no kind of movement in the water right now, the there's just no oxygen there for the fish. And I think they just become like stunned or something, you know. Billy. Yes, sir. Okay. What is the ⁓ single big biggest misconception you think people have about river sackfully fishing? Ooh, that's a good one. ⁓ when I was a when I was coming up when I was younger, you could you could we fish them ⁓ we fished the soccoli only during the fall time. So it was it was I even though I didn't fish on the river system, I think it's the same thing. A lot of people think that you can only catch sockole at certain times of the year. Soccoli repeat the same process over and over again. So they it's the same thing in a different method, but they just when they go to spawning, they staging up. You know, the little ones, the males come up inside there, they make their little beds and the females stage back. And then when spring comes they do the same thing and then they scatter out. And then once they scatter out, they'll they go into their summer pattern, they'll start stacking up and and looking for shade and stuff and then they'll be all piled up. I don't know where the big ones go, so don't even ask me that one. But the ⁓ then when the when the fall starts to come, they're doing the same thing. They starting to re they spread out and then they regroup again and then they they'll get up in biker piles and then at during the fall when they start gouging like that, they have a they start to ⁓ feed up a lot more. And that's when the bigger ones start to show up more. But I think the biggest mis misconception is that people don't think you can catch ⁓ year round. You can catch them you can catch soccer year round. They gotta eat they gotta And that's everywhere. I mean, just not on a thick on on a river system, just anywhere. Yeah, absolutely. What what advice would you give a casual angler who wants to take their weekend seriously and start consistently finding slabs on the Tik Phone? Hmm. Get out there and fish. That's about all I can tell you. But ⁓ either e if you don't have live scope, you can always get like ⁓ hummingbirds. They they have the best side imaging, if you ask me. If you could just find some structure and and just see them fish on there, that's good enough to tell me that I need to swing back around there and you can get a roughly idea. Once you find the depth that they're at and you're right above them, you know, and they biting, if they there, if they there, if they are there and you seeing them and You catching them, then that's a good that you you doing good. But if they're there and they're not biting, don't get frustrated. Just move on to the next one and try again. You gotta you gotta really ⁓ either know where they have some structure at, know where the ledges are at, you know, fishing these different depths and that that depth can that depth change is a big thing. ⁓ you know, mostly if they got some structure on it. But just fishing them ledges and fishing bait balls. stuff like that. All that stuff is all that stuff is is vital if you really wanna wanna catch ⁓ But you can get out there, anybody can go out there and catch ⁓ I mean you just gotta put the time in. But ⁓ it helps a lot to to have some electronics of some sort to be able to guide you in some direction of either finding bait, finding fish, finding structure, finding them drop off, finding them ledgers, whatever. Right. Billy f our final question today. What is the next big milestone or tournament goal you are chasing this season? Tournament goal. ⁓ I love to have more people. I think last year we had seventeen or eighteen votes, which was our best year. That was ⁓ in March. I like to have more people. I like to have more people ⁓ involved in it in all kind of ways. But ⁓ just ⁓ I I started this man just just for the love of soccer and the love of being around people and ⁓ getting to meet other people and and trying to show people. Now I'm one of the weird ones, I guess. I all I'll show people where I'm catching them at and take ⁓ there or whatever. But I have a thousand spots everywhere I go. I mean I'll find spots. So I guess my goal is just to have more people and have more people interested in in the soccer lake fishing. That's my whole goal of of doing a tournament and and to meet new people. Billy, thank you so much for giving us a few minutes and sharing your n your knowledge. Where where can the Sacculate Talk community follow your fishing adventures or check check out your latest catches? ⁓ I I ⁓ on my personal Facebook page I post a lot, but ⁓ I'm gonna start putting a little bit more on ⁓ on my Facebook page on Northfield Soccer Tournament. And I'm thinking about doing Instagram or something. So I do a little video every now and then, a little live video. But ⁓ just to to go out there and do it during the summertime. That wraps it up for this week's slab ice during the summertime on Sakley show. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a huge favor. Smash that subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. You could please review the beat down there and catch up. And head over to our YouTube channel during the fall you've Sacklade talk to watch some of these river tactics in action on the water. Well, thank you so much, Billy. All right, buddy, anytime. Cyber's knees rise where the shadows crawl. Ma sang's low like a ghostly shawl. The moon's a land soft and pale. Guiding my steps down a whiskey trail. Fit On the wild ones know it's an alligator grin and a copper steel bride or chasing dreams in the Bayou firelight. Sink deep where the cattail sway Like the break of day The Santa Mass rides the human breeze.