By: Joe Sheaffer
After having my boat in the shop for a few weeks, I was itching to get back out on the water. I launched my boat and wouldn’t you know it, my boat wasn’t working correctly. Well, I was in the water and my trolling motor was fully functioning, so I was going to go fishing. I was limited in the area where I could fish, I looked for areas that had different types of structure in close proximity. I found a flat adjacent to a channel that had some rip rap against the bank. I zeroed in on deeper sections closer to the edges of the structure. It took a while but I finally found a stretch holding quite a few fish. I was blessed to catch some nice trout, some smaller snook and a small slot red. A day that started so frustrating ended up being a nice day on the water fishing. Sure, making lemonade out of lemons was great but what I really learned, we don’t need to go far to have a good fishing day. I love to fish areas that are harder to get too and far away from other anglers. In reality the fish don’t really care. Fish are looking for areas that meet their needs. That could be far away in the backcountry or 100 yards from the ramp. Finding areas with multiple types of structure like grass, rocks, water depth, deeper holes, docks, rip rap to name a few, will likely be the key to finding fish. Looking at satellite maps like Google Earth can help us find these areas. Whether your boat breaks down or you have a smaller boat or kayak. There are many fishing opportunities near the areas where we launch our boats, good luck and keep casting.