I'm heading up to Traverse City MI later this week. Where to start looking for fish. I'll just have a canoe and my eyeballs for finding fish. Water temp is about 71° right now. How deep are they usually this time of year? There is a moderate amount of shallow (6' or less) structure in the area I have access to, and a good amount of deep structure (10'-30').

You might find some shallow early & late in the day at low light. Otherwise look for them in 25-35 fow on structure. 

I’ve only fished small waters up there but LOVE that part of the world, just rolled thru last month 

Thanks Dwight. I've been watching some videos and looking closely at maps.

Lots of structure in the 5-10' range near where I'll be (East Bay), rocks, boulders, weed beds, maybe even a sunken ship? Then it drops quickly to the abyss. I'll take a second look for structure a bit deeper. I may have found some weed beds.

When people talk about fish up "shallow" vs "deep" what depth range are they talking about? How deep is the thermocline typically?

Shallow to me on the great lakes is 10 fow or less. Thermocline is typically found around 50' deep unless a major wind event turns the lake over. I doubt it will be an issue for you in a canoe unless you really get adventurous. 

Well, that's a wrap on my Traverse City trip! I caught some big fish, but it took a lot of patience to get them.

 

The area I was in on the Old Mission Peninsula has a shallow shelf that extends 100-200' from shore and slowly descents to about 10' of depth, before dropping precipitously into over 100' of water. A lot of this shelf is just bare sand, but there are areas of rock, boulders and short vegetation. The drop-off tends to be pure sand, but in some areas has biocrust or that very short grass.

 

I was able to catch fish both in the shallow rocks and on the drop. In the shallows, I mostly caught them in the morning. The edge seemed to be any time. I never caught more than 2 fish in the same spot at the same time, though I did find a spot in the shallows where I caught 3 fish over 4 days. It looked just like everyplace else in that rock garden, not sure why they liked that spot. Along the dropoff is where I might catch 2 fish within a couple casts. The spots that held fish were either points or pockets in the dropoff, or areas where the drop was more gradual or created a little shelf of sorts, especially those with some plant life, even if it was sparse. Spot on the spot.

 

Despite trying many different baits, I caught 1 fish on a hula grub, one on a Ned TRD and one on a swimbait. The rest were all on a drop shot, and all of those were on a Berkley Flatworm.

 

Thanks for the help folks.

 

I came to post some of my experience, and found that Dwight nailed what I'd have said, and then there's an awesome report back.  Congrats, looks like a good time.

Sounds like you had a good trip. I'm glad you  figured them out. Sometimes your own personal research & your ability to reason the why, when & where is the best tackle you have at your disposal.