BigBendFishing.Net

Wevans,
If I'm coming out of Rock Landing Rd. and want to get behind Piney, is it best to run straight into Bottoms Landing and then hang a right and hug the shoreline in around Piney or is there a better way? I've got in there before ; but, I was running in about 2ft of water the whole time and putterin' along. But I basically just hung a left out of the channel went straight towards Piney, I'm sure there's a better way.

It's hard to describe the way, the channel is very deceiving and meandering Either way you go to get to Piney will have some shallow water, the channel is right beside Piney when you start behind it, it then angles towards the old sienyard, then tracks behind the little grass island in front of the sienyard and starts basically zig/zaging through the Oyster bars

So just ping pong through the oyster bars until ya find your way. Didn't really figure there was an easy way.

If I am understanding your question right my first suggestion is to ride along in someone else's boat! When the tide is high you cannot see the oyster bars, when it is low enough to see the oyster bars you will be scraping bottom on the sand bars. I've made the trip maybe 10 times and always have some kind of touch-down in my 13 footer. But it is a beautiful and little used waterway well worth experiencing.

Coincidently today I took the big loop around Piney Island: launched at Spring Creek, fished my way out and over to the north tip of Piney Island, then worked to the north along the west side of Piney Island, then to northeast and into Oyster Bay, and back to the ramp. My GPS shows 19 miles but that includes some side trips. If I were better with the computer I would paste some images of the route but I am not so using words...

As you head north from the Panacea entry markers hug the east side of of channel; continue along the curving shoreline to where you are almost opposite the side landing off of Bottoms Road and then get across the channel so that you hug the west shore; hang on the west shore until you see a split in the channel with a smaller branch going straight and the main channel curving to the northeast be sure to hug the left shoreline and follow the main channel; get back to where you hug the east shoreline again and then where the channel opens up move to the middle.

At this point you have finished the zig-zagging through sand bars and are moving into a maze of oyster bars and need to slow pretty much to idle speed. But there is a "channel" that pretty much runs down the middle ard here are some waypoints set in the "deep" water next to some big bars that are marked with PVC pipes.

N 30 02.430 W084 21.459

N 30 02.826 W084 21.342

N 30 03.345 W 084 21.070

Once you clear the last waypoint you can see Oyster Bay off to the east. You can get past the big oyster-bar-barrier by going to the right or to the far left. Here is a waypoint on the far left (north shore).

N30 03.773 W 084 20.728

In other words - you have got to like ping-pong!

Skag, sounds like you've put some time into this. I think Eerman owes you a fishing trip and a steak dinner. That's a lot of information to share.

Definitely a thanks. I think he better supply the fishing trip if he wants to catch anything. I'm sure the dinner could be negotiated.

I could hear people punching buttons on their GPS units all the way in Georgia.

I am an obsessive explorer - definitely much better at that then fishing. My latest venture is to send post-trip data from my handheld GPS to Google Earth Pro, plot the route and waypoints on a satellite image and save the file. I need to figure out how to annotate the image with text, convert to photo format and then post. Since my fishing acumen is so limited keeping 'honey-holes' quiet is not a concern.

Thanks to Chalk. (if this does not work out see image under 'testing area' section)

If you look closely half way down the route you can see where I ran hard a ground and had to do a little paddling to deeper water.

Keeps getting more impressive.

How did you lay that route on that image????

Skag wrote: My latest venture is to send post-trip data from my handheld GPS to Google Earth Pro, plot the route and waypoints on a satellite image and save the file. I need to figure out how to annotate the image with text, convert to photo format and then post. Since my fishing acumen is so limited keeping 'honey-holes' quiet is not a concern.

Chalk, he spent money for his version.

Google Earth will not load under Windows Melinium. Time to upgrade.

Had that problem myself and amen to the upgrade thing

Yep. The down side is it's probably gonna cost me $500 to upgrade. Time to call DELL.