Thanks so much for the thoughtful replies John. As Bill said, I re-read many times because there is so much info in just a couple paragraphs.
As I mentioned before, my plugging gear was on it's way and arrived late in the week. I was itching to get out and try it and this weekend has provided some warm, stable weather for 4-5 days and low winds so I could get out without worry.
I headed out Saturday evening at 6PM with my new wire spooled up and an 800 on the end of it. I figured I would first try the only "hot spot" I've had success with in the last 2 months, and that was a single 32" musky caught in mid-June. The plan was to move to the south end of the channel as you guys suggested then move out to a mid lake shoal for walleye at night.
Here's the original map with the bar area circled in red to show the structure I would initially focus on.
I made my way to the "hot spot" trolling around with no real plan, just trying to see what these spoonplugs can do. I would have to say I was very impressed with them. Talk about control! I practiced bumping them, not plowing, and running them just over bottom. Never used a lure that you could control this well and present so accurately. I found I could get my 800 down about 42ft with 160-170ft of 20lb wire out. I didn't really try deeper yet.
As I got the hang of it, I headed in closer to shore to troll the 15ft weedline. In some spots the weeds are out as far as 22ft, but in this particular area this is a brealine from 15ft to 20ft and the weeds stop at the edge of this breakline. As I trolled here bouncing the bottom and breakline, first snag! A spool of fishing line! Shortly after, an even bigger snag...figured it was a rock but after passing back and circling I reefed the spoonplug out to find I caught an unmarked commercial net. Unbelievable!! After freeing this up, I got to my honey hole and as the guideline says, start shallow. I found and trolled the weedline. Since I do not have markers, I use my fishfinder GPS. I marked the end of the weedline the entire way around the bar, cove and the bar on the west side to get a layout on my fish finder using GPS markers. A pass back and forth along the weedline and nothing so I moved out deeper. The next pass, at 22ft at the end of the weeds and towards the end of the bar extending from shore, bang...hookup! The line counter read 70ft of wire out, and GPS read 4.6MPH. I've never fought a fish on wire line, and had a new rod as well so couldn't tell at first but after a few seconds could tell it was sizeable. A few minutes later, and some fumbling to get the net locked together and a beauty 37", 14 northern made it in.
A few more trolls before dark and had another hit but didn't take it. It was dark soon so I headed to try for some walleye with no success.
Headed out with a friend last night to the same area. We caught two, with the nicest being this 11.5lber
I have an even more detailed contour chart of this area and here it is, marked in blue is the weedline as I remember it and the red dots are the areas we have caught fish. The yellow is my best guess at the migration route from deep water.
Here's why I think this is the case:
1) The home of the fish is the deepest water in the area - so somewhere in the dropoff from 50 ft to 85ft, this is where the majority of the movements will originate from
2) The fish will use the steepest of the breaks in the area as the contact point - I believe this is the area that I've highlighted from the deepest water to about the 25-30ft area
3) The fish will use breaks or breaklines to guide their movements - I think the breakline from the 30-40ft depths I've highlighted serves this purpose to get the fish from the depths, up the steepest break, to the structure, in this case the bar
4) On the best movements the fish will scatter from the contact point - I believe the contact point is the very end of the bar in about 25ft of water. From here, they will scatter along the weedline to as shallow as about 15ft. The two red dots where the musky and biggest northern were caught I believe is the scatter point, with the two outside dots being smaller fish caught on the scatter. The stable weather of the last 5 days, the lower light as the sun was getting low, provided the perfect conditions for this very good movement.
5) For future success when movements are not as good, focus needs to be on the drop off to the channel and the breakline in 30-40ft.
Any thoughts on my analysis here? Have to say, after 2 outtings I'm a spoonplugger for life!