Mapping & Interpretaton Part 5

[Steve Craig]

[mjpukacz]

Don

I like your discussions on mapping and interpretation.

How do you fish a lake when it turns over. How often does a lake turn over. You mentioned that the fish might be shallow. Are you talking the small fish or the big fish. Is this a good time to be fishing.


You also mentioned you would talk about saddles. Explain how you fish saddles. I saw an old tape of you fishing with your sons when they were 8 or 10 on a river. They caught some big fish.


Mike

[John Bales]

Mike, You don't really change the way you fish just because a lake has turned over. You still use structure, breaks and breaklines as your guide. I look at turnover as happening once and it's happening right now with our cooler temps causing the waters to mix. The large fish can be shallow after turnover but it is for a short time. You cannot forget the shallows any time of the year. They are there part of the time. Every day is a good time to fish(learn). How you fish a saddle will depend on your interpretation of what is there. Just like other structures, saddles come in all shapes , depths, and sizes.Only then will you know how to approach a saddle. Hope this helps. John

[Steve Craig]

Mike,
Don only comes on here once in a while.

Johns answer is spot on.
Our guide is Structure, Breaks, and Breaklines.
Turnover is a unique situation, in that once the water is all the same temp, in the early to late fall, the fish seem to be just about anywhere in the water column.
On Eagle Lake, which I am told just got done turning over, some mighty big Muskies can and will be caught in water less than 20 feet on a regular basis.
Also, as temps begin to drop further, the schools seem to tighten up, and also some HUGE schools appear.
This is what we live for there!

But, your and my proceedusres never change. We still use Deep water as the home of the fish, and we concentrate on Structure, Breaks, and Breaklines close to that Deep Water.
We troll the shallows, we troll the deeper areas....ON STRUCTURE.
We cast the shallows, we cast the deeper areas ....ON STRUCTURE.

We cast when we catch a fish, as many times that speed control will catch you more fish.
Check out some of Jerry Borst's videos and take a look at how fast he is trolling even with the lower water temps.
I have fallen into this trap of trolling too SLOW this time of year, thinking that the fish will be sluggish. NOT SO!
We need to check ALL speeds while trolling on STRUCTURE.

Saddles are important almost anywhere you find them. Our MAPPING PROCEEDURES will will show us what, when, how and where to fish them.
Hope this helps you some.
Your questions are good ones and you need to contact Don and send them to his ASK THE COACH segments he is running.
Steve