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I Bought a Fishing Atlas - Was It Worth It?
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May 22, 2024
This video is a book review of the Sportsman's Connection Fishing Atlas (Texas "Metro West" edition). Simon saw that they released atlases covering his area, and bought one to see how useful it is. Buy one for yourself: Texas West Metro - https://amzn.to/37MsBlN Texas East Metro - https://amzn.to/3ALk52L Eastern Tennessee - https://amzn.to/3yY7IjG Middle Tennessee - https://amzn.to/2UnpopN Western Tennessee - https://amzn.to/3sn2ZFJ Check your local lake website before your trip: https://lakehub.com/our-lake-sites/ In this video: 0:00 - Fishing Atlas Intro 0:45 - Physical Characteristics 1:30 - Lake Content 2:00 - Fish Species and Tackle Info 2:58 - Lake Details and Info 4:24 - Lake Topographic Map
View Video Transcript
0:00
What's up everybody? It's Simon from Lake Hub. Today we're doing a book review. So
0:04
find your favorite reading corner, cozy up, and let's take a look at a fishing atlas
0:13
That's right. This is a sportsman's connection fishing atlas. They just released a bunch of
0:19
Texas atlases. Atlie. What's the plural of Atlas? I'm going to go with atlases
0:25
Here we go. So we've got West Texas. West Texas. West. DFW Metro, East DFW Metro, Hill Country slash South, and then East Texas. And so I find myself
0:38
in this happy little area right here, lakes and prairie land. And so I got myself a West Metro map
0:47
First of all, wow, this is big. It was bigger than I thought it was. I didn't look at the dimensions
0:55
to be honest. But that makes it really handy. I mean, when you have an Atlas
1:00
and Atlas is going to be detailed and it's good to be big. So this isn't practical for taking on the boat
1:07
but it's practical for planning and for taking with you. It also has this kind of waterproof, I don't know, UV coating or whatever you might call that on the front
1:19
with a big spiral binding. It's almost an inch thick. So there's a lot of information here
1:25
I can see why they had to split the state up into so many different territories. So this one has 41 lakes and rivers, you know, probably about a dozen quick look here
1:36
Yeah, a dozen or so major lakes, major, you know, notable lakes
1:42
A lot of it, a lot of which are in our Lake Hub network
1:47
So it's kind of cool to compare the information that we have on our websites with the information
1:53
that's in the books. So it starts off with, of course, a map of all the stuff
1:58
states or all the uh lakes that are in the book we've got all the species a little bit about each one
2:04
uh which is kind of cool because you know you know a lot about the top five or top 10 species maybe
2:10
but there some some other kind of funky you know like carp and then like bait fish like shad and stuff there a couple different types of shad didn know that you know so it kind of cool to uh to learn about different species that i never even seen
2:24
you know like a bofin and then we've got some kind of basic tackle which is which is kind of nice
2:32
maybe you learn something that you didn't know before i haven't read through this whole this whole section
2:38
yet i'll tell you what i have done in a moment we've got some basic knots which is a handy
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resource to have on hand course you know once again you're not going to be packing this while you're
2:47
outfishing so it's more of a planning deal and then we've got tips and techniques so for different
2:54
species kind of tips and techniques and stuff and then we get into the good stuff we get into the
3:00
maps yeah so we have it split out by section i think oh let's see here no on the back here we go
3:08
so whenever you need to look up a lake or a river um you just flip to the back cover here we've got the
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thing and then we've got a list in alphabetical order so you can know exactly what page to flip
3:18
to and so each one's got you know a table of access points a bunch of information about the
3:26
seasonality of it and kind of tips and tricks and where to go what different places you know
3:32
that are actually marked on the map you know like spot number four and spot number nine
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and you know you can actually look these up your spot number nine right here i just happen to find it
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right away um right on this down slope from an island it's a good fishing spot it's always going to be
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a good fishing spot when you have a steep downslope like that so i can see why so there's a lot of
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intel there's usually some pictures um a lot of charts and graphs about um stocking history
4:02
which is really cool uh like records all kinds of really really really really
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deep like just nerdy information I love it so the species that are here limits of course
4:17
that can that can change and stuff but a lot of this stuff is is going to be pretty
4:22
evergreen and then we get to the map oh this is gorgeous I love a good topo map don't you
4:29
it just tells you a whole story you know you can see the the river bottom creek bottom like before the lake was made you know where it meandered you know so those are all going to be good spots Which bays are shallow which bays are steep
4:45
That's going to tell you, you know, probably some good spots to go catch some bait
4:51
And which spots are better to fish, which points are steep, you know, which sides of which
4:57
points are steep. So this is just really cool. There's, and then, of course, there's all the, all the
5:02
the public parks, right? And if there's a state park, like there's a state park right here
5:08
then we've got some camping. We've got a boat ramp. And we've got all our boat ramps on here
5:14
There's one here and here. There's one here. And I'll tell you a little story about that
5:21
So the first trip that I planned with this Atlas was to Lake Whitney
5:28
So we were planning a trip to Lake Whitney, Chris and I taking the boat out
5:32
to go explore, chase some striper. And so I just got this
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I'm like, all right, it's my shiny new toy. Let's use this to plan our trip. And so we found, you know, I read the whole, you know, deal about where the striper go
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and like what time of year and all that kind of stuff, what the patterns are. And we found a couple good spots we wanted to fish
5:55
We found a boat ramp that was quick enough access off the highway
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and would be a straight line straight to where we wanted to fish without having to go the whole length of the lake
6:09
And so we were like, all right, we've got our plan. We show up. Oh yeah, it's been renting for a month
6:16
The lake is like five feet high and half the boat ramps are closed. The entire state park was closed
6:24
It was a mess. Some of the marinas had just opened like the day before. And so we were able to get the boat in the water eventually
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So the downside, the only downside, besides, you know, having to buy two different books just to cover like the whole Metroplex
6:44
I know the Metroplex is big, but that's just my own personal thing. I know
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There's a lot of lakes. It's lakes in Prairieland. There a lot of lakes That just kind of a pet beef That not really a knock against against the book This really isn a knock against the book either but this isn real data That not
7:03
a sportsman's connection problem. That's a book problem. So, you know, that's where our network
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of websites and social media pages comes in handy because things are going to happen
7:15
You know, boat ramps are going to erode to have to be prepared, need to be closed or whatever
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the lake level is going to be high some years the lake level is going to be low other years you can
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check the lake level on every single one of our websites slash level so that's where you need to
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stay up to date is double check on the websites but this is also a really good guide for for like I said
7:41
planning your route on the water there are restrooms here marked out and and things like that so
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So if you want a camp and boat, you're looking at, okay, well, back here it's really shallow
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We want to camp boat and fish, or we want to camp boat and tube. Or we want to find, you know, there's a lot of vacation rentals down here
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I'm just guessing. I'm just, you know, just for example. And so we want to find a rental with the boat ramp and, you know, a slip
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And we want to do. So my point is, this allows you to get the big picture, be able to plan out what part of the lake you want to visit
8:17
and maximize your experience on the lake. And then double check that information against real-time data on the websites
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And then you're sure to have a good trip instead of fumbling around trying to find a boat ramp that's open last second like we did
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But all in all, I mean, this was a great buy. This is about $25, I think
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well worth all the information that's in here. This is gonna be one of those things
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where I'm gonna use this for years and years and years. This is really good data
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A lot of this stuff is not gonna change. The parks are not gonna change
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The boat ramps probably aren't gonna change. So it's just, it's really great
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This is a really great resource. I really recommend it. Check them out. I'll put a link down below
9:12
We love our lakes. We'll see you out on the water
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