On the water you fish most often, do you start your fishing day at locations that are tried and true for you or do you first try new or previously less productive spots trying to figure out something new?

 

oe

I want to start off strong and fish the tried & true first.

I'll try new spots - between ice-out and season-open this year I'll be doing mapping with my Striker 7cv...there's some spots I've located on on-line maps that look good.

 

Season opener - thoroughly try those spots out...if they bomb - go back to where I've caught before.

I like to try a new location within a body of water but hit my "go to" spots more.  When I try new locations it's usually paired with trying to up my experience on a certain technique. 

Depends quite a bit on what happened yesterday ~

Also, no two days / trips are exactly the same.

That's the beauty of it. 

A-Jay

 

19 minutes ago, roadwarrior said:

I want to start off strong and fish the tried & true first.

 

50 years on Toledo Bend I pretty much know where the bass are going to be...getting em to bite that's a different story.

It depends on how much time I have. More time= more areas fished.

Less Time = Hitting the best spots.

9 minutes ago, N Florida Mike said:

It depends on how much time I have. More time= more areas fished.

Less Time = Hitting the best spots.

Ahh, the beauty of being semi retired, working in a school, summers off and not starting during the school year until 2:00 pm!  My master plan worked out quite well!

 

It all depends. Most years I'd have a rotation of productive spots I'd start on and work thru and if I didn't have my fill I'd move on to different areas. Last years crazy rona crowds forced me to fish and learn new spots as my normal spots were often choked with people. The upside is I've added a couple new spots I've got confidence in to my rotation on my local ponds.

37 minutes ago, N Florida Mike said:

It depends on how much time I have. More time= more areas fished.

Less Time = Hitting the best spots.

X2 on this.  Day off outings I've got time to do either.  Before or after work trips of 2-3 hrs. I'm getting right to it.

52 minutes ago, DitchPanda said:

It all depends. Most years I'd have a rotation of productive spots I'd start on and work thru and if I didn't have my fill I'd move on to different areas. Last years crazy rona crowds forced me to fish and learn new spots as my normal spots were often choked with people. The upside is I've added a couple new spots I've got confidence in to my rotation on my local ponds.

 

This is generally me too.  Only last year with the additional number of people present, I fished at night instead.

 

I should add that the size of the lake/river, conditions, and wind factor play a role in my decision-making on which spots to fish too.

Our SoCal lakes are about 2,000 acres or 2 miles long on average, everything is known. What is unknown is how deep and what the bite is. 1st thing I do is determine the depth to start, then the location based on what I see with sonar, water temps, baitfish etc.

Tom 

19 minutes ago, WRB said:

Our SoCal lakes are about 2,000 acres or 2 miles long on average, everything is known. What is unknown is how deep and what the bite is. 1st thing I do is determine the depth to start, then the location based on what I see with sonar, water temps, baitfish etc.

Tom 

Pretty much the same here.  I may head towards the spot that did the best for me the last time I was out, but that's just a heading.  If something tells me it might be better somewhere else, I'll go there instead.  I pretty much go where the fish finder tells me.  

It depends on how many other anglers are on the water and if my spots are open or not.

The last few years, I’ve mainly hit spots that I knew I had good odds to produce. Mainly that’s because I haven’t always had the time in a day to really spend on quality hardcore investigating, and also because mainly I’m with the kid. Im not complaining though, as it’s always a good time with him in the boat. Every now and again though, I’ll get out on my own for a bit. That’s when I often will put the blinders on towards tried and true spots, and “get to work”, on searching out some new territory. 

If I can go out and catch a couple fish right away to beat any potential for skunk then I am much more likely to start to experiment with locations and techniques.  

As soon as I know the water temps, I go to the exact same spots that caught fish on the exact same baits the previous year.

Whether I'm in the optimal location, I'm still reproducing the previous year. 

It’s probably a flaw but I can’t seem to run by a spot where I’ve caught them good without at least a cast or two, or maybe three. 

On the bigger lakes, I usually have an idea of where I want to go to start and it's almost always going to be somewhere that was previously productive. On the small lakes that are under 200 acres, it's usually just put the trolling motor down and decide if I want to go right or left.