3-D Walleyes IT WOULD BE EASY FOR ANGLERS TO FALL VICTIM TO THE NOTION THAT THE WATERY WORLD BELOW IS TWO-DIMENS I O N A L . The water’s surface is flat. Lake and river
maps are flat. Your sonar screen is flat. But down below, the bottom consists of peaks and valleys just like the dry world above. Changes in bottom contours are called structure and understanding how structure affects fish behavior is the key to angling success. The trick is to train our minds to translate two-dimensional images from a map, your sonar screen, or GPS into mental images with three dimensions. A technique called visualization can help you with this task. Many professional athletes have used visualization within their respective sports. When Tiger Woods lines up a putt, he “sees” himself stroking the ball, follow the breaks, and watches it roll into the cup. When Michael Jordan played basketball, he saw himself hitting nothing but net time after time. Fishermen can practice the same method by taking information from the tools they have to visualize every subtle break and fish-holding feature below the boat.
18 3 - D
W a l l e y e s
The importance of this skill cannot be stressed too much in the case of walleyes. Walleyes that relate to structure are catchable fish. With the exception of spring spawn, they are there most of the year for just one reason – to eat. Walleyes which are suspended in open water are often there one day and gone the next. On the other hand, walleyes lurking on a point or hump will take up residence as long as food is handy and weather is stable. Fish utilize the breaklines on structure as migration paths and will often congregate where the breakline makes slight changes along the way. This is the 10 percent of the water which often holds 90 percent of the fi sh. Your challenge is to understand where those contact points are and how to fish them. But how many of us take the time to analyze our favorite fishing holes in order to understand why they produce time and time again? Think of one of your best spots. How is it shaped? Where are the points, the sub-points off the main point, and the inside turns? Some of these are known as the ”spot-on-a-spot” and each one may hold fish. What is the bottom composed of? Is the grey line on the Photos provided by Ted Takasaki