So I've spent a good portion of the summer doing my best to remember and follow spoonplugging guidelines; to take the principles as I understand them and apply them in practice. The kicker is that I've been trying to apply them to fishing out of my kayak, which poses a particular set of challenges but gives me enormous satisfaction. I'm keeping a record of special difficulties and my adaptations that I hope to outline after the season in a thread of it's own.
It hasn't always been as straight-forward as it comes off in the instructional material and frankly there have been days and lakes that just plain beat me and had me back pitching a jig at shoreline cover. But there were other days too. Days that hinted of something coming together into a larger picture. Days where asking the how's and why's about a fish caught from the shallows led to more and larger fish coming from a nearby breakline in deeper water. Days where every other angler answered my question with, "not much happening today" - but I was catching fish. Good days, because of the guidelines.
Mapping/interpretation is really where I feel like I'm still just a toddler trying to learn to walk. I can discover structure situations more or less ok but fine-tuning my mental map of the features and breaks by relying on my lures and markers instead of my depth finder is a struggle.
Maybe my expectation of how the markers should be used is wrong. Or maybe the way I use them should be different based on the size of the structures, which are often relatively small since I frequently fish on smaller lakes to accommodate the kayak - some as small as 50 acres.
Let me lay out an example and maybe you all might have some good pointers for me.
let's say I discover an underwater bar that extends out from shore. I want to discover the spot where the crown starts to break into deeper water at the point furthest from shore. In my head, I want to mark that spot with a buoy marker just a few feet either inside or outside the actual break. If I try to throw markers trolling I'll end up with markers on both sides but never on it. If I'm running, say, 50' of line and throw a marker as soon as I start bumping the bar then I have one marker 50' to one side. If I then turn around and come at it from the other direction and do the same then I have two markers 100' or so apart and I have to gauge that the bar is in the center. Unless I'm hitting a bar that is 100' across, in which case I'll have two markers on the same spot and I have to gauge that the bar extends 50' in both directions - meaning I need to move out further to get to the contact point I'm looking for.
It just seems a LOT easier to me to just paddle around watching my depth finder and trying to drop a marker right on the spot once I've established with the lure that there is a structure situation below. Easier isn't always better though, I know, and every time I resort to this (often) I feel like I'm cheating myself out of all that there really is to learn.
Are you guys looking to precisely mark the spot on a spot or are you throwing markers just to keep you in the general area while you make shore-line sightings and build a mental map? (shore line sightings - another area I need work. Line up the tall tree in the second clump on top of the first bridge piling during the third pass? Or was it the third tree in the first cluster to the second bridge piling on the third pass? Sorry... That's probably another thread huh?
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