Expand your Waypoints

Get the Most from your Best Spots

Having several waypoints marked on your electronics can be a problem as your way points can many times pull you away from where the fish are! The reason is fish move and if you are not aware of their movements or the way they expand than you can be a deterrent unless you expand around your way point. The biggest advice I give folks is to understand what the natural details of the spot you have found fish, in other words is the area a point, a contour drop or break; is the current affective them, does it have wood on it? There are many questions to be answered about the area you are catching fish and when you understand its uniqueness you can than expand your catching spot to more similar locations.

The biggest advantage about your waypoints is you do not have to travel far to find more fish, bass move to similar locations within proximity and are not too far away from where you just caught them before. The key to getting the most out of your locations is to understand the characteristics of similarity; so, the first thing to do is find those areas within a mile or so and start checking those when your fish dry up. If that does not produce, then change depths again within short distances but similar in bottom structure; a point is a point whether it is a point dropping into 5 ft. of water or dropping into 20 ft. of water. Stumps are in shallow locations as well as deep locations, Lowrance Structure Scan, or Navionics mapping is the ideal tool to find similar spots. They are tools that have unique abilities to help you locate more fish!

If you are struggling use these tools and you will be much better off because traveling, cost money and there are no guarantees that moving fifteen miles will produce more fish. The bass are not going to move ten miles so why would you? The bass only move short distances especially when the elements are similar, or constant like springtime or winter and so on. Do not over-expand just find new areas within your current waypoint.