Be the Lake Master

Last night I finally got caught up enough to get to a few pending emails I had.  One particular email had one of the more complex questions I have ever received.  The email was from John in South Dakota wondering about finding that "spot-on-the-spot".  Basically in brief John was asking what makes one spot better than others?  My first thought is this could take days to answer as it is an extremely complex question since you have to take into account a lot of factors like, species of fish, time of year, bottom content, ice conditions, oxygen levels and the list goes on and on.  But, there are a few things that make a spot great and recently while fishing bluegill I had to put it all together on the first attempt to be successful and this is how it worked.

I hand carried my Auger, bait, Frabill Ice rod and my Humminbird ICE-55/385ci combo while watching my GPS screen on the 385ci which was running the LakeMaster Minnesota chip to a spot that I hoped would hold some big bluegill.  I didn't have a lot of time and certainly didn't have much for gear.  So, when I went to start the auger I noticed all the gas had leaked out of the tank due to a cracked line.  Thankfully I had enough gas in the line to drill one hole.  Good thing there was only 12 inches of ice because I barely got through the 12 inches.  So hear I sit, on a lake with no one within a mile, one hole and really need to get some photo fish bad.  Not the ideal situation for an ice fisherman that prefers to run and gun.

As I dropped my lure down it didn't take long and I had a little Bluegill, a very encouraging sign.  At least there was something in this area and if there was on bluegill there would certainly be more.  It did not take long and the action was fast and furious with the big bluegill feeding aggressively, truly a great evening on the ice.

So what does this have to do with the original email question?  I did not just drill that hole in a random spot.  I used my LakeMaster chip in my GPS to pick a spot that I knew had the best chance to produce fish.  And, being I only had one chance, I had to get it right.  As you can see by the picture, I am fishing what some call a "saddle".  An area where deep water extends inside to shallow water creating a type of funnel.  There is a classic shallow feeding spot up top before it drops down to deeper water, which you don't see.  Then if you look close you see the spot on the spot, the little point where I sat to ambush these bluegill as they moved up to feed.  Essentially in this scenario that little point in the saddle is the "spot-on-the-spot".

As I said earlier, there are many things that make a spot better than others but we all have access to technology now that makes hitting the "good" spots much easier.  My advice to John in South Dakota is to pick up the LakeMaster Dakotas chip, the info on that chip is priceless to me and will put you on that "spot-on-the-spot"!