How do pros on TV find fish in open water?

[noogai13]

I was watching FLW outdoors and i noticed a lot of people catching fish in very open, featureless water. do they locate points or drop offs? or do they just locate them using a fish finder? i always thought of bass as shallow water fish, but should i redefine my methods as i have never tried doing open water fishing? and what would some good baits for this?

[NateFollmer]

A little bit of everything you mentioned.

They will look for anything out of the ordinary on the bottom. Maybe a rock pile, a lone rock (doesn't even have to be very big), grass, a dip, a hump.... I think you get the idea

They will also look for fish on the fish finder. On bigger lakes (like Erie for example) this is almost a must.

My favorite 'open water' place to fish is just a long thin flat of grass. If you didn't have a fish finder, you'd never see the grass, because its a good 8 foot underwater. It's surrounded by a steep dropoff that drops from 10 to 20 feet pretty quickly.

[oprcsr]

Yeah if they are fishing open water they have a reason, a river bed/rockpile/underwater trees/sandbar/weeds something that tells them that fish are there.

[SirSnookalot]

I had a guy living across the street from me that was a producer for a fishing tv show.  He told me they fish in the live well of the camera boat, then did some editing.

I have no way to prove or disprove this, but it is television.

[mortonjl]

I had a guy living across the street from me that was a producer for a fishing tv show. He told me they fish in the live well of the camera boat, then did some editing.

I have no way to prove or disprove this, but it is television.

BS

[Nitrofreak]

I was watching FLW outdoors and i noticed a lot of people catching fish in very open, featureless water. do they locate points or drop offs? or do they just locate them using a fish finder? i always thought of bass as shallow water fish, but should i redefine my methods as i have never tried doing open water fishing? and what would some good baits for this?

That is a big misconception about the part of thinking of bass as shallow water fish and a lot of us make that same assumption but the reality is they can and will find homes in deeper waters.

The lake I like to fish a lot, Has a grass bed that is about 200 yards wide and close to 150 yards long and is found in water 28 to 35 feet deep that I used my "fish finder" for, So if I had to guess I would say they most likely would have used one too or used a detailed map.

I usually fish this area with jigs and I have had some really nice fish come from there.

So don't be afraid to go deep!!

[NateFollmer]

Right, I have seen some HUGE bass come from as deep as 60 feet. I personally have not ever fished that deep. I don't think I have ever heard of any fish coming from much more than 60 ft. but I'm sure they could go further! (I'm talking large and small mouths).

[WRB]

The moderators can list links to threads on structure fishing on this site, lots of excellent information.

You should also Google "Buck Perry structure fishing" and Bill Murphy "In Pursuit of Giant Bass", 2 books bass fisherman should read that fish deep structured lakes.

WRB

[Tin]

I will say that when Roland Martin made a show several years back on Cape Cod smallie fishing that his producer showed up to a tournament a few days before they filmed and bought a few big smallies off of guys after they weighed them in. You can only assume what happened after.

And as for open water and depths, there seems to be no limit. I qualified for the FLW Eastern Divisionals last year by drop-shotting for smallies in 60-80'. My deepest smallies have come in the 100-110' range and they were suspended in about 90'.' Although guys trolling for lakers on Lake George in 80'+ catch both largies and smallies.

It's all about learning how to use electronics.

[WRB]

Fishing outside structure is far more complicated than working along a shoreline; more water to explore.

If you don't have a basic understanding why bass locate at specific areas near the bank, then you will be lost trying to find them in deeper water, even with the best sonar/GPS on the market.

This is a very deep subject, do some reading and we can start to answer more specific questions regarding "open water".

WRB

[Raul]

Open "featureless" water is featureless to a certain point if you are visualy oriented ( you fish what you see ), you see nothing, but the fact that you don 't see it doesn 't mean it 's not there, the catch is to find it, you can make use of several tools that can help you find the features:

1.- Like mentioned before ---> electronics

2.- Topo maps of the lake if available, topo maps show the contour of the bottom, that contour is marked by lines which normally indicate an increase in the depth by 5 ft, the closer the lines to each other the steeper the contour is. Also, topo maps indicate the location of sunken roads, bridges, river/creek beds n 'such.

3.- Observation of the contour of the terrain above water level, what you see above is pretty much what 's underneath the water.

4.- Paying attention to small details that can tell you that there 's something underneath the water, changes in how the water "looks" might tell you if there 's a change in depth ( they are easier to spot with a water rippled surface ).

[Nibbles]

I'm going to have to agree with Raul and say that a mix of good topographical map reading paired with electronics is key.

Take out the map and identify several (5-10) spots you think would be good. Then it's just a matter of hitting all the spots and using your shiny electronics. A process of elimination.

[Big-O]

I had a guy living across the street from me that was a producer for a fishing tv show. He told me they fish in the live well of the camera boat, then did some editing.

I have no way to prove or disprove this, but it is television.

SS, at that time you're neighbor may have been working for some "WANNA BE FISHERMEN" and hopefully he has moved on to partner with more experienced and professional colleagues ;D Not saying it has never happened, but I've never seen it nor heard of it and I'm in the same industry. Prior to a show, we always choose a time and place to fish that gives the best opportunity to be successful

To the original question of this thread topic, finding off shore fish is not simple at first but definitely not that difficult once you get your sea legs under you By applying many of the above noted responses, you will start to understand that what we see on or just below the surface is a low priority to understand the bigger picture. I rarely fish within 100 yrds of shore and often 10 times further away.

When we begin to understand why fish are where, we quickly realize that on lakes or man made resivoirs, shorelines hold a few fish and the rest of a resivoir hold many times more. Once we start to figure things out we can often find fish that have rarely seen a hook, if ever. And these fish will eat artificials with determined regularity

On smaller rivers the fish seem to be more dependable close to shoreline structure than on larger resivoirs.

Big O

www.ragetail.com

[Eddie Munster]

When we begin to understand why fish are where, we quickly realize that on lakes or man made resivoirs, shorelines hold a few fish and the rest of a resivoir hold many times more. Once we start to figure things out we can often find fish that have rarely seen a hook, if ever. And these fish will eat artificials with determined regularity

On smaller rivers the fish seem to be more dependable close to shoreline structure than on larger resivoirs.

Big O

www.ragetail.com

Well said. 

I'm a complete noob at reading offshore structure with my little depthfinder. That being said, nothing like tooling around far from shore, finding some structure and pulling a fish or two off it. Good stuff.

[tennsopher]

Buy John Hopes book Trackin Trophies available from Debra Dean p.o.Box10399 Fort Worth,TX 76114 .The man spent years radiotracking large bass.This should help understand bass movement and location.