The "SPOT" on the Spot

It is not common in the world of fishing when anglers find that perfect "spot".  When you do, it is often called the "spot on the spot" and it is an amazing day.  Typically, a general area where fish are living or actively feeding, anglers will reel them in with consistency.  Most anglers are happy with this as it makes for a great day on the water or the ice.   However, a recent trip to the ice proved to be one of those unique opportunities to fish on "the spot".   

I was fishing with four other anglers on this particular weekend.  Saturday was a great day of hole drilling and hole hopping, scooping up nice bluegills and the occasional crappie.  While hopping around from hole to hole I noticed a three-foot difference in depth at a few holes.  Most holes were reading 24 feet of water on the Vexilar, while a few had 27 feet of water.  In this 1/2-acre area I also noticed a buildup of fish on the ice around these deeper holes.  I decided to drill out the area with a dozen or so holes and started to picture in my mind what the floor of the lake actually looked like.  I referenced three different contour maps of this area, but they did not note any significant difference in bottom contours.  I/we, from fishing and drilling were able to find an old creek channel that these fish were constantly cruising in.  That three-foot drop in depth was the perfect highway for these fish, and we had found it.  We zeroed in on a 50-foot stretch of the channel that afternoon and our rate of catch increased.   Jigs and spoons worked very well all day for us, for the best times of the day, no bait was needed on the spoon, making for repeated catches.  Hole hopping requires some special tools that I would like to mention.  Utilizing a 36-inch Dead Meat Rod and the Quantum Drive size 10 spinning reel made for moving to one hole to another and dropping down quickly a simple/effortless task.

That night we discussed our plan for the next morning, which had the temps well below zero for the real feel.  Two guys went to try some shallower water that morning and the remaining three of us settled in our shacks for a 3-hole approach.  We found the spot on the spot the day before and I knew that the fish would be there.  I drilled 3 holes, one for each of us on the channel that morning.  The three of us had constant action of bluegills and crappies for the next four hours, and it didn't take long for the others to follow suit.  We kept a few meals to be cleaned and released many more back to the lake that morning.  It was one of those rare instances that we had found "the spot on the spot" that led to catch after catch.  What a great weekend of panfishing it made for the five of us, and a few meals in the freezer of some delicious panfish to boot.