water tem- perature.
“Fishing
ledges and crevices can
be dynamite in the winter,” Hawk said. “And then, in the summer, they get on that vertical stuff and they hide in the shade and in little cut-outs, ledges and other stuff.”
Flats: This scenario, Hawk said, is a much harder egg to crack because targets are often few and far between and it’s easy to overlook your areas of op- portunity. Favoring flats mostly in summer and fall, he knows that success demands intense observation.
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“Fish will get out and roam and chase bait, but I want to find individual targets on that flat,” Hawk said. “Sometimes, you might catch a ran- dom fish out in the open, but a lot of times, if you look really close, there’s one big rock there, or the flat had a 1- to 1 1/2-foot gravel rise.
“Shell beds are another thing to look for. The area may seem flat, but you want to look for those subtle differences on that flat. I think that’s what is really key, especially with something like a shakey head because it’s not something we can cover tons of water with. It’s better if we can throw it at specific targets.”
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