Spot-on-the-Spot Fishing
By Mark Strand

It's not enough, a lot of times, just to find a big piece of structure.

Next time you ask somebody where they caught those nice fish and they tell you "out on that big reef," realize you aren't getting much information. No matter how many years have gone by since the 'fishing revolution' of the 1960s and 70s, most of us are still a bit fuzzy on the details when it comes to structure fishing.
If you learn to find the 'spot on the spot' you'll score more consistently.

Most experts credit E.L. 'Buck' Perry with spearheading the structure fishing revolution. His book, "Spoonplugging" is one of those must-reads for serious anglers. He explained the concepts of fish using travel paths, and stopping to set up on structure-cover combinations. Learn the essence of this system and fishing becomes much more predictable, even today.

(Regular readers of this column know that we also talk often about finding and catching fish that are not related to structure. It's important to realize that predator fish can be found in both scenarios.)
Back to finding the spot on the spot.

You'll hear this term, or something similar to it, from a lot of top pros. This is what it means, in a nutshell…

There is structure and there is structure. In a lake, river, or reservoir, you have dropoffs (breaklines), shallow food shelves (flats) where fish do a lot of feeding, featureless basin areas (some of them deep, some not), points (bars), humps ('sunken islands') and other features. These are part of what we call structure. So are weeds, stumps (stick-ups), brush, downed trees, large boulders, patches of sand or gravel, and just about anything else 'different' from the surrounding bottom composition. In a river or narrows area, current is an important part of structure that often dictates where fish hold.

A lot of anglers miss out on fish because they take a simplistic view of structure fishing. They think that following a group of boats onto a big reef, or fishing 'in the weeds,' or trolling blindly down a riprap (rock) shoreline is structure fishing.

Learn to find the spot on the spot. What this means is that, on any larger piece of structure, there will always be something smaller that attracts the bigger fish, or the most fish. Don't just fish the weeds. If they're shallow weeds and you can see into them with polarized sunglasses, look for open pockets, or thick clumps. Make every cast land just beyond something like this, and present your bait in the target zone.

Taking this process into deeper water is where your skills with sonar (and underwater cameras) come in. Most good depthfinders can show you hard vs. soft bottom, if you know the unit well enough to recognize it. Spend time improving your skills with your depthfinder, even if it costs you fishing time for a few trips. The sonar can also show you weeds––where they start and where they end. You can learn to follow a contour, as pros say, staying on a certain depth no matter how many times it dips in toward shore or outward toward the open lake.

Learn to scout these 'breaklines' for 'inside turns.' You could fish all day down a straight section of dropoff and not catch as many fish as you can with three casts, or three well-executed trolling passes, into an inside turn. Fish do, indeed, 'stack up' in certain specific spots from time to time. Find them and you find good fishing.

The opposite of an inside turn is a point. We all know what points are, but learn to find them for yourself. There are lots of them (not all pronounced or very big) than what you see on the typical lake map.

In the big picture, the specifics of any given piece of structure aren't important. Every spot is different. What's important is to find the 'something different' that leads you to fish. Where rock becomes sand, big rock becomes table-top rock, weeds that jut out into the lake, the thickest trees in a bay filled with downed trees.

Go ahead and follow the other boats onto the big reef. But then quit following them. Study the area closely, whether you're looking into shallow water or relying on underwater eyes like sonar or camera. Find the spot on the spot and you'll catch more fish. It's up to you whether you tell your friends about the spot…on the spot.

Note: This article was crafted by the Rapala Professional Advisory Team. For more fishing insights, go to www.rapala.com.