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This is a great article - JJH SEE THE LANDSCAPE FOR SUMMER BASS By Captain Larry R. King
My fishing partner and friend, Eddie Parker, laughed as he set the hook on another scrappy summer time bass from Lake Sinclair. The laughter was caused by a sense of accomplishment for finding the fish and being able to share the fun with a friend. We were catching a fish on nearly every cast with a Carolina rigged worm. "How did you know the bass would be located on this exact part of the structure?” I asked. He didn't answer, but continued laughing while enjoying the fight of another fish. He may have wanted me to beg for the answer. I needed to know this more than wanting to catch another bass. Catching bass from deep water during summer on many reservoirs is usually not very difficult. The hard part is being able to find them. Fishing the offshore structures usually requires only a few different baits and techniques, which can be partially learned by a novice rather quickly. But learning to find the fish holding locations can take years or a lifetime of experimentation. Many anglers find open water fish and locations by watching others who have spent the time searching for the fish holding locations. Anglers who look for others, rather than fishing, are limited in their ability to locate fish on a strange lake. Often, these anglers will also be fishing places that receive heavy pressure. Open water fish and locations can be found by anyone with the ability to use a few baits, interpret a depth finder and read a map. To become accomplished, one must also learn to visualize the structure shapes or "landscape" on the floor of the lake. This requires an angler to learn and trust the signals from a depth finder and at the same time begin to imagine or picture the actual bottom shape. But this technique can be practiced while sitting in a boat, or from anywhere one has a viewing area. The visualizing process will become easier after learning and catching fish from a couple locations on your favorite lake. Hundreds or thousands of times I've imagined the landscape being the bottom of a new reservoir. I looked for the fish holding locations after visualizing where normal pool elevation would be. It doesn't matter where the shoreline or normal pool elevation is, but only that one is determined. I've imagined the base of a tree on the side of a gently sloping hill as the shoreline. Immediately I can see the approximate shoreline continuing for another one hundred yards left across the barren hillside before entering a stand of trees. I notice a "wash-out" or ditch twenty yards inside the tree line with the shallow end beginning twenty feet from water's edge or about five feet deep. The other end of the ditch intersects with a small creek channel about twenty-five feet deep. To the right of my initial shoreline tree, I see a shallow flat, estimated to be seven feet deep. It extends about fifty yards into the lake and drops abruptly to twenty feet. A boulder the size of a VW Beetle protrudes from the drop-off at ten to fifteen feet deep. A highway enters the imaginary lake between the flat and my viewing position. The highway tapers slowly for two hundred yards before crossing the creek by bridge. The creek channel is twenty-five feet deep and twelve feet on top of the bridge. Rather quickly, I have just envisioned several areas that could hold summer time bass and eliminated most of the twenty acres of imaginary lake bottom. Potentially, fish could be found along the edge of the tree line at any depth out to the creek and beyond. The ditch could be used as a migration route to the shallows. Fish could also hold in or along the edge of the ditch from the shallow end out to the creek. The shallow flat has possibilities, especially on the drop-off around the boulder. Fish could also feed along the road and hold around, on top of, or under the bridge. Most anywhere along the creek channel also has potential. And the trees, if left standing, could offer bass vertical cover to move up or down in the water column. Another practical application is to imagine the lake fifteen or twenty feet higher while sitting in a boat. Some of the same places bass are caught during spring at normal pool would also produce with the lake ten to twenty five feet higher in the summer. At home or on the water, one can study a topographic map of the lake to learn the approximate shape of many bottom structures. Many points, flats, roads, ditches, channels and humps can be found on the map. However, time must be spent looking at these places with a quality depth finder. A hump that looks good on the map may be void of cover and taper slowly into deeper water on all sides. Or there could be a small area of rock, grass or stumps adjacent to a quick drop into the depths. Occasionally, bass will scatter over a broad area of a flat, hump or point. But more often they are holding around the most prominent and irregular features of a given structure. Others have spoken to me about fishing locations by saying: "It's just down stream from the green house with black trim" or "it's about fifty yards out from the white picket fence." Quite often, I don't have a clue where they are referring to. And the reason is because my eyes and mind are normally focused on my depth finder, trying to visualize an exact picture of the under water landscape. I miss the sight of many things on shore, except when choosing landmarks for the purpose of triangulating a fishing spot. The best method I've found for learning a new structure area is to begin by running a tight "grid" at a thousand to fifteen hundred RPM's with the outboard. While running the grid, we'll closely watch the depth finder. For the purpose of illustration, let's assume we've found a likely looking long flat point on the map. The new color-coded map shows a ditch swinging in close to the under water point on the cove side. We also notice the main creek channel a short distance from the other side. We begin the grid run on either side of the point and maintain a straight course toward the other side. We cross the point as shallow as possible on the initial run. We continue straight until reaching the creek or ditch. We then make a tight, one hundred eighty degree turn to the side that will carry us farther out on the point. We now run a second straight course parallel to the first. Each straight run will parallel the previous until reaching beyond the tip or end of the under water point. During the entire grid run, we closely watched the depth finder and have begun to visualize the under water landscape. We learned many things during the grid run. The majority of the bottom was barren, slow tapering, soft and showed no fish. The main creek channel was farther away than the map indicated and the deeper flat between the creek and the point was void of cover. Near the end of the point, we had noticed an abrupt drop from twelve to sixteen feet and possibly a couple of fish hugging the bottom. On the cove side near the ditch, we saw a thirty-yard stretch that dropped quickly from fourteen to twenty five feet deep. The drop-off appeared to have stumps or rocks along the side and several fish a foot or two off the bottom at about sixteen feet. We also noticed the ditch came within five yards of the drop-off on the side of the point. There was a four-foot drop into the ditch making the bottom of it twenty-nine feet deep. And we saw scattered shad schools suspended from twelve to twenty feet deep above the ditch. We spent a few minutes running the grid, but eliminated over ninety per cent of the three or four acres we looked at. Now we can concentrate our fishing time on "prime real estate." By now, the novice reading this should know the prime places on the point to wet a hook. But the novice should also know that it's not possible to accurately interpret a depth finder one hundred per cent of the time. Depth finders are known by other names such as: depth sounders, locaters and recorders. They are manufactured in a wide range of styles and price. Motorized flashers are mostly obsolete, except for in-dash units. Gimbal mount flashers of today show a liquid crystal display. The most popular units are the liquid crystal graphs. Some are a combination depth finder and GPS (global positioning system). Many veteran anglers that learned to use a flasher still do so along with a graph unit. A flasher can more nearly display "real time" images. However, the signal will leave as quickly as it was displayed. This means the user must constantly watch the flasher or risk missing vital information. A typical novice will also find it takes more time learning to interpret the signals. Liquid crystal graphs are easier for the average angler to use. The displayed images remain on the screen much longer. Most units are user friendly after a minimum of time reading the owner’s manual. Many have automatic settings for the different functions. Fish are displayed as fish on many of the graphs. Others will show fish as an arch or inverted V. The images will vary from different units. For this reason, the angler must become acquainted with the unit being used. The displayed images are made by multiple dots called pixels. More pixels per square inch mean more accurate displays and easier interpretation. Units containing more and smaller pixels are also priced higher. But a better quality depth finder is well worth the extra money. Many anglers also use an under water camera. In relatively clear water, the user can see and identify fish, type of bottom and cover. The camera will show exactly what the images are on the screen of a depth finder. Another benefit is seeing how fish are positioned in relation to the bottom and cover. Anyone, especially the novice, can learn much with a camera. The greatest drawback is they can be time consuming and leave less time for fishing. Briefly, we'll discuss some of the baits that could work on the point we scouted earlier. Assuming the fish will not come near the surface for a top water or jerk bait, we must use baits that will stay in the strike zone. Based on our depth finder readings, we'll fish twelve feet and deeper. Several companies make quality crank baits capable of reaching depths of twelve to twenty feet and beyond. There is no perfect bait, color, retrieve method or angle of retrieve. Something that works on one lake may not on another. Experiment with crank baits that will bump the cover, but also be ready for suspended fish to hit after the bait has left the bottom. Texas or Carolina rigged worms can be slowly worked through the cover, drop-offs and the ditch. Heavy spinner baits can be crawled, pumped or jerked. Jig head worms, jig and plastic, or buck tail jigs are some other choices. For vertical fishing, spoons and drop shot rigs shouldn't be over looked. The emphasis of this writing was to give the reader a better understanding of summer time, open water, fish holding structure. To become accomplished at finding these fish, one must learn to see the lake bottom. Nothing can take the place of time on the water hunting these locations. But an angler's ability to visualize can be enhanced by viewing the landscape at any time. Eddie finally answered my question after the fish quit biting. He admitted not being sure the fish were there, but he knew it was the only area on the hump that held suitable cover. I had wondered why he looked at only a small part of the structure. Now after many years of hunting summer bass, Eddie says I'm better at it than he is. I like to think I might be his equal. But who knows what the coming years may reveal. I'm not sure he still floods the landscape. I do
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