Alright, you want to find that next fishing hot spot? Well, that's what this video is about, is how to find your next fishing hot spot. Now before I get into all of it, the first thing you need to understand is a bass is a bass is a bass no matter where they are. So the first step in finding a good hot spot is understanding bass. They basically are, they're simple animals, no matter where they are, they have basic needs, right? That is covering structure, like where are they going to live, where are they going to hang out that's going to enable them to survive the best. So cover is, well, structure is any contour changes on the bottom, that could be a point, hump, drop-off, creek channel, what have you. And then the cover is what's attached to that or on the structure, like it could be boulders, could be stumps, could be docks, could be weeds. But understand how the bass are using it, what's available to them, that's key because they're going to utilize that stuff to survive.
The second piece of it is forage. What are they feeding on? It's either going to be bait fish or crawdads. So figure out if you know the body of water that you're on, what's the primary forage, that helps you understand what the bass, what they're doing and how they relate to that. Actually understanding that forage, know how shad, if it's gizzard shad or whatever, or if it's perch or trout, what do they do? How do those fish act and behave in their environment? The bass are going to be there and the bass are going to use that covering structure to eat them.
And then the last piece of it that a bass needs is water, it's the quality of water. Now a bass is not going to know five miles away that the water quality is better. So they're not going to travel that far. But in a given area, bass will seek out the best water quality that's available. And water quality, what I mean by that is if it has good oxygen levels or it has ideal water temperature, water clarity, if they're site feeders, the clearer the water, the better. The different characteristics in the water, what is the best in that area and bass will tend to seek that out. Again, you combine that with what I just told you about. That's going to help you understand bass behavior.
That brings me to the first step in finding that hotspot and that is understanding how bass relate and behave in their environment. Knowing that's going to go a long way. What I mean by that is think about first of all seasonal patterns. As a general rule, bass are deeper in the summer and in the winter and they're shallower in the fall and in the spring, as a general rule. So that kind of helps you understand where they might be positioned and then furthermore look at their conditions. We talked about the water conditions but what about environmental in terms of the weather? If it's a real sunny day, bass tends to concentrate bass. They tend to get in deeper into cover or get under docks. It tends to position them more. If it's a cloudy day or if it's windy and there's some chop in the water that breaks up the light level, they tend to roam a little bit more. Their strike zone tends to be a little bit bigger. They tend to move around a little bit more. Those changes both in seasonal and in that day-to-day weather as the sun comes in and out of clouds or as the water begins to warm up throughout the day, it's going to change their positioning and how they behave and relate in that water. So understand that.
The next step in finding a hot spot is really understanding the fishery that you're going to fish. Bass will act differently in a current, river situation than they are in a lake, and understanding what the nuances are of that particular fishery is going to help you understand where the fish are going to be positioned. Use a variety of different lake maps. Not just your electronic one but get some paper maps. I like to get as many paper maps as I can of a particular fishery because there's never one particular map, whether it's electronic or not, that has everything on it. Each one will show a little bit different thing and you piece it all together, the collective of all of them and that gives you a really good idea of what is under the water. So I'll give you an example of paper maps. You look at a variety. I'm now going to show you that, say for example, you've got a long riprap wall, maybe a mile long and it looks straight. Well, some graphs are going to show you, hey, there's some changes in depth along that way and those are some areas to target, for sure, absolutely. So you're going to know there's some areas of depth. Some might show there's some weed patches. Okay, cool. Now I know where's some changes in depth and some weedy areas are. Those might be some areas to look at, but maybe only one map will show you where the culverts are if there's any and those can be bass highways. They can sit there at the culvert waiting for bait fish to come in and out and ambush them, and sometimes that's the key to catching them is knowing those culverts are, but only one map shows them. So, study the fishery using a variety of different maps.
You can also go to your local DNR website. A lot of times they post fishing reports and that can help. That can help. It's general and vague. Sometimes they'll post like, here's good areas that don't even have a fishing report but this lake has an abundance of this type of fish in it, and if you're fishing for bass these are some areas to go to. It kind of gives you a little bit more information, ideas on where to fish.
Now the next source of information is the locals. Now the locals would be, say a buddy. A buddy would be somebody who's, say for example, he's fished that lake a lot and you're just learning it. Ask him some general questions about that lake or go to a tackle store. These guys are talking to these anglers every day, day in and out. They may know exactly what's going on in that lake right at that period of time. The key thing is knowing what questions to ask. Don't ask what lure are they using and where are they catching them? Because you're never going to be able to replicate that. No matter what you're learning in past history and you're not going to be able to go out four days, five days later and try to replicate exactly what was happening five days ago and catch fish. It's not going to work for you. So don't worry about asking about that. Instead, ask about what depth are they at? What's the water temperature? Is it going up? Is it going down? Is the water level going up and going down? Has the fishing been really slow or has it been really good? Understanding the aggressive nature of the bass, that type of thing. Those will really help you kind of figure out when you pair it with your maps of where to fish and what the fish might be doing. You can also look again back in your DNR website or you might even have a local resort that will post fishing reports that have been going on. Take those with a little bit of grain of salt because you might not get really good information but if you look over a course of years for that time of year that you're going to be fishing, you can start to stitch together certain commonalities, certain patterns. For example, maybe in June, predominantly a lot of the fish are being caught on top waters. Okay, well, maybe you should be throwing top water. If you see that year after year after year, that's really good piece of information rather than the exact lure they're using and where they were using it. So, those can be good pieces of information.
Another way to find a good hot spot is to look at tournament results. Especially if you have an archive with a lot of tournament results, you can figure out a couple different things. First of all, I guarantee you the top five finishers in a tournament are not throwing the same exact bait unless they're all using forward-facing sonar, then they're fishing three-inch minnows. But with that exception, you'll find that they're throwing a variety of different baits but it gives you an idea of the activity level of the fish at that time. Were they fast-moving baits? Were they slow-moving baits? And it gives you an idea of what depth they were at. Were they throwing deep-diving crankbaits or were they throwing top waters? And in some cases, they can give you a general area of where they were fishing. Maybe they were up towards the inlet where the water comes in, or maybe they were fishing out deep towards the other end of the lake. Maybe the dam, if there's a dam, they're fishing the face of the dam, what have you. But it gives you a general idea. And again, if you can go back in the archives, you can start to see this pattern for the time of year that you want to fish. And it gives you, again, some good ideas of where these fish are concentrated on and what they might be biting that can help you find that hot spot.
Now, the final piece for finding that secret hot spot that's all yours is you got to go out and just go fishing. Armed with all the knowledge that you've just done, all that research and stuff that you've just done, you've got to go out and fish it. Right? There's some things that just aren't going to show up in a graph or a map that are going to show up in any report that you need to find when you're out in the water. For example, transition areas where it's from boulder to gravel, or where you go from lily pads to mill foil, or your certain type of docks, are they floating docks, are they docks that are on pilings, what have you. You start to find those when you go fishing and figure out where are all those hot spots that contain those pieces of the puzzle that click all together and create that hot spot. Best way to do it is use search baits. I use spinnerbaits. I cover water quickly and I catch a lot of fish using spinnerbaits. I can find out pretty quickly if the fish are hanging on a piece of structure or cover using spinnerbaits. But you can use crankbaits. You can use lipless crankbaits. Those are really good. Throughout the...lipless crankbaits are great year round. Crankbaits for the most part year round. Find those, they call those search baits. Use those to help find those fish located on those areas to help you find that hot spot. Armed with all this information, you're going to go out and you're going to find your own hot spots and you're going to have yourself a blast while doing it. Hope that helps. For more tips and tricks like this, visit BassResource.com.
