Posting again about one of the smaller lakes I fish in the midwest (600 acres) and I would like to think I have learned a good bit from the forum over last couple of years, things are starting to make sense but still lots to learn. My question since we have had the heat and the water temp is climbing I can tell the fish are making adjustments and are moving. Water temps are 85 and higher, thermocline has set up around 12ft or so since its a fairly shallow lake but its pretty obvious. Lake has little to no vegetation, not much rock except for the shoreline but has lots of docks and lots of brushpiles off shore. Most folks are pounding the docks and lifts and just trying to learn more about offshore even in small lakes to maybe carch more fish that are not being harrassed as much. Sorry such a long winded intro but my question is what is the easiest way to figure out which brushpiles and the likes are holding fish. I have electronics but feel like I am not using then near tonthe degree that I should but with so many brush piles just trying to learn how best to go about it and get better offshore. Thanks :)

Most everything has been covered already but it's possible you're overthinking it also. The lake near my house isn't real deep but has some good offshore structure like rocky drop offs, a roadbed, a couple sunken docks, several brushpiles, but it's also completely rimmed with residential docks. The last couple times out, I've been stubborn and stuck to trying to fish the offshore fish, with pretty minimal success minus chasing roamers on scope, those fish are chasing YOY shad and have their feedbags on, but they're also almost all smaller than 15". Each trip, I eventually get frustrated and give up on the offshore fish and start skipping docks with an urchin and fishing the slop with a frog, and the bites start coming and they've been bigger fish every time. I see the other boats, and every person I pass is fishing a wacky rig under the docks, or a finesse bait under them. I haven't seen anyone fishing the frog and only a couple urchins and they're just fishing the edges, not skipping under the docks. The fish were right where everyone else is fishing, I just had to do something different to make them bite.

Offshore smaller lakes summertime heat

2 hours ago2 hr

3 hours ago, bishoptf said:
What I was attempting to show isnhow much brush there is, every green box on that screenshot is a brush pile. After every Christmas folks donate the trees and they sink them in jan/feb every year, so there are a lot.
The lake itself averages around 12ft or so, main lake towards dam goes to mid twenties but lots of the lake is 12ft or less.
I hit some newer brush today, and most keepers that I caught came of brush, kind of hit and miss but will keep trying different locations and see if I can keep figuring things out. Keep trying top water, buzz bait, spook and nothing even interested.
Things that I want to try are spoons around the deeper docks and big bucktail hair jigs. I think the spoons could do well over the brush piles but without ffs not wanting to get hung up but something I want to try.

FFS isn’t going to help with hangups, just keep the rod tip up a little and go by feel.

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