In mid-depth-deep water are you guys relying on Navionics' placement of creek channel swings, intersections, etc to fish those spots? Just wondering. Fishing alone leaves you with a lot of uncertainties and doubts.

Yes, I rely heavily on my Navionics. In all honesty, now that I use Navionics I feel like I was just "guessing" before on where to fish. I use Navionics to find the spots before I even get to the lake which gives me a good plan of attack.

Yes, As stated above, not just while on the water either. With Navionics having a phone app and web app you can also utilize the mapping to plan before ever getting to the lake. As we all know, bottom contours can change, may be a little off etc. but with the Navionics Sonar Chart feature, Navionics averages approx 20,000 updates to their mapping a week, so the mapping is always improving.

https://webapp.navionics.com/#boating@6&key=omvvDnjx%7DP

The navionics will usually get you close to the channel but it's not exact. But yes, don't just go out there blind casting all over a cove. Use a chip to find the breaks

Absolutely, I rely on my Insight mapping in my HDS to keep me in the areas I want to fish when targeting underwater depth changes.

So finding the exact spot is just about noticing the drop or rise from your bottom contact bait?

Get close and then watch your graph for the depth change that indicates the channel break

Creek channels with 2D sonar, Down Imaging, Side Imaging and 360.

Great examples. Thanks! Know for a fact I haven't seen any of that on my screens yet but I know what to look for now.

If you are going by mapping to find creek channels and don't see any of the above, the mapping is not accurate for that feature. I have seen errors of 50'+ for creek channels on maps.

If you're fishing predominantly soft bottom lakes, especially older lakes then you may not ever find the channel. It may be silted in completely or just a very slight, gentle depression.

Wayne, thank you for posting those, so very, very helpful.

I came across some of those down images and thought that's what it might be. I had forgot my Navionics card, but came across those in some coves on Lake Belton.

It will be hard to tell that break with a bait. You really need to either idle or troll around until you find it with the graph. If you don't have gps that's fine. Bring 4 or 5 markers and each time you cross the channel throw one out. That will give you the basics of how the channel is laid out. You can fish that for a little bit and then move the markers in or out of the creek. It takes time to thoroughly fish a whole creek and the reality is you might fish 3 before you find some fish. You have to be willing to put the time in and lots of people just don't have the patience or time to do it. You can catch some monsters though. Oh, one more trick, on timber lakes once you find the channel you can kind of see it thru all the timber in some places. On other lakes the creeks are the only spots that still have timber because that's where they couldn't cut them down

Excellent. Thanks. I did notice while looking at old google earth images that you can find some timber paths where the creek runs through them. I'll take your advice and apply it on the water. I'm usually on Ray Bob so there's plenty of it. I think I may just be getting alittle impatient thinking I should be finding schools by now but I do need to realize that it's going to take a lot of time on the water learning the ropes.