Hey everyone, 

i have been fishing a reservoir that i live close to and have been finding good numbers of bass in certain areas. I know that they are probably loaded on some off shore points, but there are no depth maps. Is there any sort of inventive way to find those offshore spots without being in a boat? I doubt theres much i could do, but im willing to try

17 minutes ago, Gregorym38 said:

Hey everyone, 

i have been fishing a reservoir that i live close to and have been finding good numbers of bass in certain areas. I know that they are probably loaded on some off shore points, but there are no depth maps. Is there any sort of inventive way to find those offshore spots without being in a boat? I doubt theres much i could do, but im willing to try

So you’re bank bound? Drag a bottom contact lure around for enough time from all access points and you will have a map in your brain of the bottom contour. @galyonj can tell you where all the rocks are

I have found all the logs on every body of water I fish by setting my hook fast and deep into the side of'em. I often have one mini heart attack an outing thinking I'm hooking my new PB...

 

Sometimes I don't catch and release

Look into portable/castable fish finders/sonar.

6 hours ago, Gregorym38 said:

i have been fishing a reservoir

 

What body of water?

 

Points above water usually extend under water . Look at Google earth. Often depth changes are visible.

look at google earth and go look at older images and usually you can find soemthing that will help indicate what the bottom contour looks like.

Historical image option on Google earth. 
 

Or cast out a fish finder linked to your phone. 

https://usa.fishermap.org/depth-map/champlain-lake/
 

Scroll around & find your body of water and see if this helps

If you're where you were last year, then you're going to strike out with Navionics or other online maps.  There is no boating on that lake so no one will have created a depth map like that.  I don't see one published on NJFW either.  You could use Catt's method and keep paper maps from the 1960's but I don't think that will help you either since the lake was first made in 1901 and improved in 1923.  Electronically, I think you're only option is google aerial.  The current google maps for the lake shows it from last summer and it looks like it is about 6' low.  USGS says it varied but was about 6-8' different last summer to now.  That's more than enough to pick out a few things.  You can see that the south east side of the lake where the shoreline is largely gravel has steep banks as there is no real anything coming out away from the bank and you can't even see anything in the water.  The norther half of the lake has a lot more flats coming out off the shoreline points about what you'd expect from looking at the shoreline.  I can also see more trees down from the bank into the water than any other lake I'm aware of in NJ.  Lots of them are still in the water with the lake 8' low so that's a TON of water around them.  When you get to the upper quarter of the lake you can see it looks shallower and flatter based on the color of the water.  Above the bridge where the brook comes in was dried up in the summer however there is a pretty defined creek channel (two in fact) that I would have focused on back in April if you were around.  There are also a couple other creek/drainage channels that come in on the west side of the lake (where I think you might be fishing) around the brush.  If it were me, that's where I'd spend all of my effort- that west side.

 

Map study over, now go drag a jig or texas rig on some braid.  It looks like its a mud/gravel/rock bottom in a lot of places so you should get a decent feel for what's down there

A few of these, along with the ability to count all your fingers and toes, and you’ve got it made. Don’t forget about your eyeballs, too. It’s how I start mapping all the micro lakes I fish from the bank.