How many waypoints

[BassBandit35]

For a tournament if you only have 1 day to prefish for 4 days event, in average how many waypoints would you put in within 3 miles stretch in advance before hitting the water to check them out for a day? I punched 24 waypoints within 3 miles, wonder if that's too much and time consuming to check each of them just 1 day practice? Course I'll be breaking it down to like 8 and rotate during event.

I'll repeat, main question is how many spots you'd check in a day before tournament?

[fishfordollars]

Depends of the layout of the water I'm fishing. Twenty four does not seem excessive, though I doubt I would check them all in practice. Good to have them just in case you are scrambling during tournament hours.

Probably would not fish them all, but take a boat ride and check them out with electronics and try to fish the ones that I thought held the most promise. They always look different from the bow of the boat. JMO.

[Jig Man]

That is very sound advice IMO.

[CJ]

There's a lot that would dictate how many spots I check. The pattern I might have working would really make a difference.

[bassnleo]

Like CJ said, number of waypoints would depend on my pattern or the style of fishing I was doing.

I personally would fish ALL the waypoints I marked. If I only have 1 day to practice I would want to know which waypoints are worth spending time on and which ones are unproductive, that way you are not burning valuable tournament time PLUS, it will key in further on pattern.

Honestly, if you have 24 waypoints in a 3 mile strech then your doing ok, if your on some sort or pattern that is......

Remember, 4 days is a long tournament, don't burn your best spot. Rotate through places you are catching fish. Save a few spots for days 3 and 4 if you can. Also, as far as practicing on your waypoints, I personally don't hook more than a fish or two. Once I kind of figure out the quality of the fish I cover the hook points or shake 'em off if possible.

Good luck!

[Willzx225]

Be careful when it comes to having your whole day mapped out for practice.  It is ok if you are absolutely positive your game plan will work but the thing to remember is that if you are worried about "checking" all of these spots, you won't fish in the moment and might completely miss out on the winning pattern.  I always do the best when I fish what the lake will give me and adjust to the conditions instead of fishing history.  But that is just me.  

[farmpond1]

I would think it would depend upon how different (or the same) each waypoint is.  If you are so systematic or methodical as to do this, you could make specific notes about each waypoint (water temperature, depth, structure, cover, etc) and then, when the tournament comes, examine the conditions as they appear to be at that time.  If some waypoints seem more appropriate than others, you can fish those first and then go back to the others later (if the first ones don't pan out).  Remember, on each day the conditions may be different and if you note in advance what the waypoints are like, you don't have to commit everything to memory.