Once the ice melts on our natural lakes it doesn't take long for the water to get into the low 40's. Once this happens the fish are ready to move up and feed before heading back to deeper water and prepare for the upcoming spawn. If you can get on the fish when they first move up to feed, you can contact the biggest fish in the lake and lots of them. One of the key pieces of structure we focus on are 8-12' rocks that have deep water nearby. If the fish are not on these areas, we waste little time and head to deeper gravel patches that have scattered rock mixed in. The water is cold, but the fish will bite. If you are not getting bites, it's best to keep rotating depths and type of structure until you contact fish. We like to try some very shallow gravel and rock areas. If the fish are not there we back out to the 8-12' gravel and rock areas. Again, if the fish are not on this structure we go out to the 15-20' or deeper areas that are close to the shallow areas.

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