Could use some advise please

[jbmaine]

Hello, My wife and I really enjoy bass fishing and up to now have only fished for L.M.B., however we would like to expand to smallie's. There is a pond we are going to in the next few days that is known as good smallie water. The only things I know about the pond is it is about 400 acres, has a rocky bottom, max depth is 30+ ft, and there is perch and some trout in it beside bass. I have read posts on good lures for smallie's and we have most of what is reccomended. My question is how do you aproach a new body of water? Is there a method you use to short cut the time it takes to find where the fish are holding? For example, fish the shore line first, then work out into deeper water, drift down the middle or some of both. Sorry if this is a vague guestion but all of our experience to date has been for L.M. on muddy bottoms in shallower water. Fishing rocky bottoms in colder deeper water is new to us. We will be fishing out of a boat and the pond is in southern Maine.

                                    As always, thanks for your help

                                                                             J.B.

[Jig Man]

We all have our methods of how to approach new water.  Mine is to fish points first.  I like to start deep and work to shallow water.  My reasoning is two fold:  I don't want the fish which may be away from the bank to be aware of my boat by starting shallow first and I catch bigger fish in and around deep water.

If I don't get deep bites then I move to the shallows and start searching.