Finding Saugeye

Finding Saugeye

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This is one of those "it depends" answers but it should help. On small local lakes I break the water into 3 or 4 sections. Knowing that Saugeye are migrational tells me which 1/3 or 1/4 of the lake they will be using at certain times of the year. Example: Split Tappan into 3 parts. Spring will find them in the shallowest 1/3. As the water warms and the spawn ends the fish will move into the middle 1/3. Towards late summer the fish will move into the deepest 1/3. This is oversimplified because Saugeye can be caught in the entire lake year round. This will give you a starting point to find the most and most active saugeye in a given body of water.

Once youve chosen the section of lake to start in you need to look at the weather and water conditions.Example: If its a bright sunny day and youre at Piedmont with 6 feet of water visibility you wont catch many fish shallow. At Tappan on the same day with 2 feet of visibility the shallow bite could be very good. Weather related starting points are a bit tougher to nail down. I split this into 3 parts as well. The day after a storm = coldfront. The days following = stable. The day of the storm = up and down. The affect on the fish will vary with the intensity of the weather so it pays to be flexable. When fishing the cold front I start with inside bends. The fish will normally be on the deepest edge of the structure. In stable weather ill start with points and bays and the fish will be lightly scattered along them. On the up and down day Ill start with flats and when the fish are active they should be spread over the entire flat and fairly shallow. As the up turns to down "during and after the weather front moves through" the fish will back off of the structure onto its deepwater edges.

Choosing a color depends on all of the above. In the spring ill start with natrual minnow colors such as silver, gold, white, shad ect. As the water warms and the fish switch to worms ill start with colors like orange, yellow, green ect. In the fall when the fish change back to minnows and shad i switch back as well only ill start with bigger baits.