We've got 8 inches of snow on the ground, it's -7 outside, and I've got the fishing fever bad! For now I DVR all the fishing shows I can on the weekends and try not to reorganize my tackle for the 3rd time this winter. I'm not sure where all I'm going to take this Blog but in general I'm going to try to offer some helpful tips, ideas, and will share with you my fishing adventures along the way.
So for those of you who suffer from the fever like I do and can't get on the water here's my first tip that should help bring that fever down a little and build some excitement for you at the same time. If you haven't explored Google maps and Google earth yet, you need to! What is cool about using either one of these is to explore the earth from a "bird's eye view". First - I'd suggest navigating to your favorite fishing spot on the map. If using Google Maps you can easily switch between street maps to satellite and back again. Once your over your fishing spot, use the zoom in and zoom out feature to learn more about your favorite body of water. Look for feeder creeks, explore the topography of the land around your area, follow the creek/river up and down from your lake to see what other lakes might be in the same chain. What's interesting with the Google Maps view is sometimes you can see silt build ups where the water comes into the impoundment, and you'll see areas that go shallow to deep where you might not have known previously where they were. If you've got a GPS based fish finder system, you can also write down coordinates (which are provided in real time by the map to the position of your cursor) and plug those into your system to navigate to and check out with your depth finder next time you hit your favorite spot.
Chances are if you're looking at your favorite fishing spot on Google maps, you're identifying areas of the lake you know - validating that the creek bends there, or that sand bar is right there. By understanding what you can see from space and how it equates to your favorite body of water, you can now use Google Maps as a tool for scouting new bodies of water to try.
Usually it's this time of year that most states release their shocking results from the previous year. I always download these reports into excel and review the results (good blog idea - I'll try to get to this tomorrow) to look for new places to try this season. The winter is a perfect time to do your research and plan some trips. Here's where using Google maps is also beneficial. With Google you can type in the name of the lake and click their map option which will take you right to that lake. By using the satellite view I can take a quick look at a body of water and understand a lot about it before spending one cent on lake maps. It will also help me to plan when I will go to fish it. For example, you don't want to go to a long skinny north/south lake with no wind break on a really windy day when blowing from the north or south, but you might be able to fish it on an east/west wind day when you couldn't get on some other waters. You can also apply what you saw from your favorite lake to the new body of water - looking for those same kinds of things to give you a better idea of maybe where to start looking for fish.
In closing just remember to add Google maps to your toolbox for scouting lakes and while it's cold outside, you can spend some productive time inside where it's warm scouting new water and learning more about your favorite spots.
Until next time... Tight Lines!
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