Underwater Understanding: All About Points

Editor's note: This blog installment comes from Fishhound pro staffer Bob Maindelle.

Try this. Place your left hand down on the table with your fingers spread apart. Then, while keeping your fingertips touching the table, raise the back of your hand and your wrist up off the table with the back of your hand parallel to the table top.

Now, think of the back of your hand as the shore. Your five fingers are like points – finger-like extensions that go down into the water and touch the flat, deep bottom (basin) of the lake.

Here's the mistake that most anglers make: They think a point is that short arrowhead-like piece of bank where the land pokes out into the water. In other words, that small area where the back of your hand meets your finger (the knuckle). But points are so much more. Rarely do anglers appreciate the fact that points, like a spine or finger, extend way out into the lake and thus create a fish-attracting feature all the way out into deep water.

Some points extend straight out from the land, while others hook slightly one way or the other.

As you look at a lake map or study the maps built into your sonar unit, points will appear as fingerlike projections that jut out into the lake. Closely study how far from the shoreline they go. Look for nooks and crannies along their lengths, and look for "hooks" toward the deep end of the points. These are reliable fish-holding areas.

The screenshot above shows a point. I overlaid a black line down the entire length of the point. See how it extends, like a finger, from the shore to the deep basin? Fish can be found along this entire feature.

Many fishermen mistake that area I've circled in black near the shoreline for "the point." But as you can see, the point is so much more.

You should search along a point with sonar the same way you would a breakline. Start deep and move shallow by weaving across the point. To one side you'll see the flat bottom, then the rise to the highest part – what I call the "spine" of the point – then it'll fall back to flat bottom on the other side.

As you turn back 180 degrees to weave over the spine again, you'll see the flat bottom, then the rise to the highest part of the spine of the point, then the fall back to the bottom and so on.

White bass and hybrids will utilize different areas and depths along the point based on time of year or even time of day. Your job is to pinpoint the areas and depths they're utilizing that day.

Bob Maindelle owns and operates Holding the Line guide service in Salado, Texas – just on the edge of the Texas hill country. He views the pursuit of fish – especially species like white bass – as a lifelong challenge that tests the mind, body and will. Over the past 20 years he's logged more than 1,600 trips during which he and his clients have boated more than 51,000 fish. Catch up with him at HoldingTheLineGuideService.com or send him an email at Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com.

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