®
Spring 2021
LOCATING EITHER
The same goes when you are fishing and running your
Locating a ditch can be an easy process, simply by
trolling motor, keep your eyes on that depth reading.
relying on your mapping software and the electronics on your
When you are close to bank and fishing shallow water, a
boat. By having an up-to-date Humminbird LakeMaster
six-inch change may just be the ticket.
card in my HELIX units, I can see the very pronounced depth
Now, while you should watch the depth finder, having a
changes across a flat, or an old creek channel running from keen eye on the water is also crucial when fishing shallow
deep water to the bank.
water and looking for those slight depressions.
When I am running my Mercury
If you are fishing vegetation, a
Pro XS outboard, I will keep my one
ditch or depression will usually be
HELIX12 unit at the console on 2D
quite easy to notice as that area will
Sonar and I will be looking for any
void of vegetation. That depression
depth change.
provides bass with an ambush
When I am going to a new spot
spot, both from the depth change,
in practice, I will run the boat on
but also the vegetation running
pad, but at a speed where my high-
alongside it.
speed transducer is able to still get
Two other things too look
a good reading of the bottom. If I
for that may give you a clue of
see a major depth change, I will stop
a depression in the lake or river
and check it out.
bottom include beaver huts and
Even when idling, I am looking
wash out holes in the bank.
for that slight depth change, as
If you see a beaver hut, you will
if the water goes from two-feet,
know that beavers have a path they
across a mud or sand flat, to a
use to get in and out of their hut.
three- or four-foot ditch, then back
This path will form a depression
up to two-feet. That section of
and have wood around it. It is
deeper water just may be the honey
prime cover for bass to hold in and
hole highway that bass are using to
around.
move from deeper water up to the
A washout hole in a bank
bank.
Photo: All-Terrain Tackle
come from a time the water level
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