5 Reasons Why Potholes Reservoir Will Continue to Frustrate You

You Will Get Overwhelmed With The “Eye Candy”

Potholes is famous for inducing the “Potholes Wander” where you run around on your trolling motor, flailing away, since it all looks good.

Eye Candy

You Won’t Embrace The Idea That Structure, Not Cover, Is The Key

Despite all that good looking cover, the real key to Potholes is understanding that the underlying structure (contours, transitions from deep to shallow, flats and corners) really determine where bass setup and habitat. Cover becomes a secondary consideration for your bait selection.

While sand structure dominates Potholes Reservoir, it is still structure all the same.

You Won’t Be Observant Enough

With all the cover to look at, it’s no wonder that many of us will ignore the signs that other wildlife are presenting to us. Grebes, Beavers, Carp and Eagles are just some of the other critters that can tell us about the bass fishing, if we only notice.

What Are They Doing?

You Won’t Use Your GPS/Mapping Properly

Many anglers today have thousands of dollars wrapped up in GPS/Sonar units on their boats. Unfortunately, many simply turn them on and read water depth and water temperature off of them all day.

Waypoint coding combined with a good map
Some areas won’t be “mapped”, so it’s up to you to put the pieces together…

You Will Emphasis Baits and Tackle Over Locations and Positioning

It’s the old 80/20 rule…you spend 80% of your time and money on baits and tackle when 80% of your success is due to your location, position, angles and timing.

Position > Baits

Related Articles

Responses

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  1. You could’t have said it any better. My first time out to Potholes was for a NWB derby. Coming from Texas the dunes looked like easy pickings. Wow was I wrong. I was able to put together by grinding hard 13 lbs for that day. Not good.
    With this website and help. I have become more successful on Potholes using the following.
    !) map study be it GE , Bing etc;
    2) create way-points, tracks and trails
    3) spend a day on the water and review the validity of your way points, tracks etc.
    4) Create my own detail logs and maps with my electronics
    5) revise what you found on the water and do 1, 2 and 3 again.

    1. I have to agree with Kevin’s post. Potholes appears to be the bass fisherman’s dream “eye candy” everywhere just where do I toss my lure? GOA and the courses helped me maximize the time I spent on the water fishing the structure and not every piece of “eye candy” seen. From a learning standpoint, what’s better than someone actually giving you the Playbook on how to fish a body of water and be spot on?

      Now if my boat had cooperated with me that would be another story…