Can someone show me or explain to me what a staging area will look like on contour map?

Rocks a ditch going into a cove a point and ditch in a cove.it all varies just have to find them.basically a stopping point to a spawning area imo

A standard location would include where a creek channel bends into a flat.

I've always felt like a fair amount of fish are already up in areas that they'll spawn, they don't ever visit a "staging" area.

The off-shore fish are on a little different routine, I've just followed the creek channels until I found schools, or fished secondary points.

I have found that the shallow water flats that run out to the creek channel to be the best. I like to fish the flat side of the creeks when the water steps up to 10 ft. or less out of the creek. Your warmest water will be in the cuts that are narrow, crooked, running East and West. This helps when a North wind front tries to move the warmer water out of the cut. Work your way up to the shore looking for no nothing small points holding heavy hardwood cover. The bigger stumps will hold bigger fish.

Anything such as points or ditches going back towards the flat