Fishing “Spots, Holes & The Juice”

True Colors
April 27, 2017
Fishing the Shad Spawn
May 4, 2017

All of us bass fisherman have certain “spots & holes” that we like to fish.  These are areas that we have caught fish at in the past and believe in.
The question is how did you find your “spot”?  Were you brought there by a fellow angler and he showed you this “fishing hole”?  Did you find it while you were doing some graphing and looking for underwater structure?

I have hundreds of waypoints on the lakes that I primarily fish.  These are “spot & holes” that I have found and are worth remembering.

Every fisherman out there wants to have more of these spots to fish that we have a lot of confidence in.  When you pick up a map or scroll through your graph when you are looking at a lake, we all see the same things.  We see rivers, creeks, humps, roadbeds, pipelines, etc.  These are obvious on any map or graph with SD microchip capabilities.

What the tournament angler and trophy hunter alike are looking for are the not so obvious areas to fish.  The long extended point that has a channel swing beside it looks great!!  It looked great to the other 20 boats that have come and gone as well.  I am not saying you can’t catch fish there.  Rather that it is more than likely a heavily pressured area due to the fact it is a very obvious target.

When you see a very obvious piece of cover or structure like this, try and find the spot within the spot.  There may be a slight ditch on one side, or a single log on a barren point that will be bass magnets.  It won’t be much either.  Look for a small rock pile, or small hump or anything that seems too small to be significant.  These may very well be the juice.

Sure, everyone thinks you are just fishing the point, but you are actually fishing the best area within the spot we call the juice.

The juice may be different on any body of water or area you fish.  Just pay attention to your graph and what you are feeling on your line.  You are trying to find the subtle changes that the other fisherman overlook.  The juice will be a certain brush pile in an area loaded with brush.  But the fish prefer it more than all the others.  Why do they like it more?  I don’t know.  Why do I despise Chinese food and other people love it?  Fish have their own personalities and favorite areas to be in.  What you need to do is figure out which ones they like and slowly eliminate others.

I have a certain bush that I will run miles just to fish.  There are tons of other bushes there, but this bush has put dozens of 5lb + bass in my boat.  It is the juice of that area for some reason.

When you do find a promising area and absolutely smash um, are you gonna go and tell everyone at the ramp or weigh in about it?  Absolutely NOT.

These juice holes are highly coveted among fisherman and are very difficult to find.  If they were easy to find, then everyone would know them.

Fishing pressure will move fish off of the obvious spots on tournament day.  This is when knowing where the juice is can mean the difference in cashing a check, or going home empty handed.

There is no substitute here for time on the water.  You can’t go off of what your buddy told you, get out there and put your head down and go fishing, and you just might find a new spot, hole or the juice.

Story by Shane Smith

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