In search of...

[Abbeysdad]

Lately I have been motoring near likely spots, then switching to the TM to quietly 'sneak' in and scout for fish using the fish finder. If I don't see much, I move off to another spot. I feel if the sonar doesn't see anything, there prolly won't be much to catch. Although if/when I'm doing this near docks, I'll likely toss some stuff to see if I can coax any lurkers there. If/when I do find fish, I check to see if they're suspended and at what depth and target that as best I can.

What are your tactics for finding dem crafty fishies?

[cassidyta]

I think it all depends on the time of day and the depth we are talking about.
Since late morning to early afternoon is usually the tough time, I will focus there.

When the weather is warmer like this, I prefer to call my electronics my structure finder. I find that during mid day the fish get rather lazy in the deep and are not always showing up on my finder. My technique is dependant on the structure. Weeds and shrubs will usually start with a senko. Gravel and small rocks is a worm and larger rocks a jig. This of course are starting points for me. If those techniques aren't working I will usually switch to a DS as the secondary bait. Heck I have had luck moving to crank baits in the deep as well.

[WTL]

I'm not a great sight fisherman, so I dont intend this to be a treatise. There are likely better ways...

Of course boat control is very important. The wind can be a friend or foe, you can use it to drift near the area you want to target but dont let it push you over the area.

In the past, I have tried to scrouch down a little. I am thinking in particular of a time where I was pursuing a bass in standing timber and I tried to tie into the timber and use it to break my silhouette.

I have also started using a 16' pool pole to scoot around in the shallows in some cases, and I have installed a bracket by which I can use the pole to anchor in very shallow water.

[Captmikestarrett]

Just to corn fuse the matter more consider this.. every piece of structure you see hundreds of fishermen have seen too. So it stands to reason that those are well fished spots.

What you do not see but can hypothisize is primary and secondary points just by the lay of the land..

A push pole will get there better and with less disturbance. It will also locate submerged logs to tuck away in your cranial cavity for later.

Capt Mike

[walkeraviator]

This time of year, shallow water is useless... fish go deep to get cooler water... I just remember how tehy used to do it before sonar... get a good lake map... fish structure you find on the map with search baits (spinnerbaits, crank baits, carolina rigs), then slow down and try other tactics... if you catch one fish, there are more than likely more there... i am used to these tactics as our fish finder is pretty much crap being 15 years old and a basic model even back then.

[jasonfish320]

Originally Posted by walkeraviator

This time of year, shallow water is useless... fish go deep to get cooler water.

This isn't always true, especially early mornings..my tournament last week proved this point..the biggest fish out of our 7 was caught in 3feet in isolated pads and weighed in just over 4lbs. I also caught a 3pounder that was cruisin the shoreline in/out of a rock pile that was 10feet off shore in 2-3feet. However for the most part I agree that the larger fish will be caught in deeper water.

As for the original question...I spend a lot of time driving around the lake with one eye on the finder and another analyzing the shoreline..I probably look like a tourist most of the time. You can learn a lot about the lake by looking at the terrain around it...if the land in one area is flat and has very little slope could mean that it's shallow and predictable in that area, however a steep slope into the water probably means that it's much deeper right off the shoreline and may be a better area to try in the warmer months as it will typically hold more fish. Recently I have found that if you find structure that you know others have fished try fishing away from the structure up to 50 yards sometimes...I watched guys fish a marker buoy where a large group of rocks sat in the middle of the lake and no-one caught anything..we pulled up off the pile about 20 yards and fished out away from the buoy and were able to pick up a few fish that where holding just off the structure.

[bamabassman]

i suc at sight fishing. yeah,yeah i know.i suck at fishing period, hahahaha! but really if i see the fish, then he sees me and it is OVER with. i have found that if we can't see each other i get more hits. so i try to fish accordingly.

[geezer1]

Abbeysdad...I fish a lot of deep structure this time of year. My electronics are the heart & soul of any game plan I develop. I fished Choke Canyon, here in South Texas, earlier this week & surface temp at 6:00 AM was 79 degrees. Three hours later, it was 83 degrees. The thermocline was at 16', as were several bait balls (which indicate predator fish are in the area). I found the Bass nearby, holding on laydowns off the side of a point, also in 16' of water. We caught 14 Bass off that point. My electronics provided all of the information cited above. I think your game plan is excellent.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by jasonfish320

Recently I have found that if you find structure that you know others have fished try fishing away from the structure up to 50 yards sometimes...I watched guys fish a marker buoy where a large group of rocks sat in the middle of the lake and no-one caught anything..we pulled up off the pile about 20 yards and fished out away from the buoy and were able to pick up a few fish that where holding just off the structure.

Jason is dead on with this strategy. Some of the best offshore fish are 'just off' the structure. Anglers usually will graph an underwater hump for instance and fish the top all the way out to the outer edges of the hump. But often there is small isolated cover or structure out away from the hump that big fish use instead. It's more isolated, safer, and when they want to feed heavily, they can move up to the big hump or point and forage.

More and more when I'm fishing offshore and scanning the bottom with electronics, I'll find the obvious structure, back off and bit from its perimeter and look for very small, less obvious, cover or structure nearby. These are gold.

If you don't see fish on your sonar, it doesn't necessarily mean one isn't there. If fish are out to the side of your boat, they could be graphing in the bottom... in other words, the fish would be shown as buried in the bottom of the lake. If you have a detailed color unit, you can spot this a lot of times, but more often than not it goes unnoticed.

Timing with offshore structure can be everything. So you may need to come back to a spot multiple times a day to hit it just right.

[bamabassman]

Kevin, can you show us a sample of this? Interesting for me.