I know there are alot of factors that go into where you catch fish at. But depth is one i struggle with. I can find structure, creek channels, etc, but i never know what depth to start in. Im my experience, Ive found fish shallow in spring and summer, and my gut tells me you can probably find fish shallow year round, but when do they go deep, when do you find them in 10-20ft of water? Is alot of it based on the water body? Or is some of it temperature driven?

I used to think i knew some stuff about catfishing, but now that weve got a boat, i realize i dont know as much as i thought.

Generally speaking. Find the shad, you find the fish.

They are scattered - Can be anywhere

I'm seeing a lot of cats shallow in between 4 and 10 foot of water. I had a trip last weekend where I was catching crappie and would take a piece of shad and put it on my crappie hook and catch blues and channel cat mixed in with the crappie in timber that was 4 fow..Go figure..LOL!!!..Too bad I wasn't filming dang it!!...Hope you get into them Caribou

Its a rough journey but one thing Ive found since about july till currently is that I find lots of game fish holding on structure such as creek channels and edges in 20-25 fow. I can almost bet money when I scan the contour change I will begin to see game fish hanging in that zone in key areas even though they could be shallower and they could be deeper. I'm mainly a hybrid fisherman but I catch blues mixed in too and the same concept seems to apply. Just need to get more comfortable with your fish finder and no easy way to do that.

Ever changing Caribou, ya know. Normally I won't decide where to even look until after I've caught bait, meaning I wait until I see the depth the bait is before I decide where to start. What's funny with this, is I will very seldom fish where I catch the bait...I'll hit other spots with the same depth but look for more structure at that depth. Right now, early and late, I'm fishing shallow, ie: < 2 foot. I like fishing shallow however, I don't normally scan deeper water until it's way, way cold, as in ice on the boat deck after catching bait cold.

Yes they can be in 5ft or less of water year round. If you're doing deeper/farther out fishing almost any cover - piles, trees, boulders, etc will have fish unless theres a thermocline then obv not below that. But, find what depth the majority of the bait seems to be at and they'll be very close to that.

Eric

I also really like fishing shallow water. Love hearing a fish splash the water when he feels the hook.

Shallow almost year round....especially if it's dark and you're chumming.

However, most of my trips are day based and limited on time. The only thing that holds true year round for that seems to be 10-20ft where there is deeper and shallower water near by.

During the summer, never deeper than 20 for my lakes.
During the winter, trending towards deep and rarely less than 5.
During spring, shallower, not that they aren't deep, but lake traffic is h#!!.
During fall, everyone is in school and hunting, so you can fish wherever...which is good because they are everywhere in the fall.

thanks for all the help guys