What to Look for when trying your luck on a different lake:

[cagetrapper]

You guys ever done this?

Go on a Lake with other peoples foot prints going from the entrance point to the so called Hot Spots, and what do you see..

ALOT of  holes right?

Well.....instead of checking all the holes with your fish finder, or even IF you don't have a Fish Finder, you can usually Find the Hot Hole or Spot just by studing the area.

Look for Cigerette butts, Coffee poured out, Chewing Tobacco Spit, bait such as Spikes, or Minnows, and yes Even Pee...

I like lookin for this spot, and IF I do have a Spot, I'll even do the same..The only thing I don't like is when the snow comes and will bury the evidence..of course there's always the Stick Trick..

Stan

[brujharr]

Interesting. method of choosing holes, cagetrapper!     Question, about the Stick Trick. Are you referring to a marker of some type on the ice, (seen numerous styles of those) or something else?   

[bigfish_1556]

Also - I've left many tromped down footprints and various other "signs" around a given hole - and never caught a thing - just happens that's where I parked my tipups and where I spent my day........You're probably 50/50 on this one relative to finding the "honey hole"......

[brujharr]

What about fishing parties? Six pepole show up, each with a shack! Then six vehicle's, each with two pepole! Then in a little bit of time, even more show up! They had a great time all day long, eating and drinking! But, very few fish caught! The next day, it looks like an army caught every fish in the lake!   

[dabluz]

Blood on the ice is almost a sure way of seeing if the fishing was good at a particular spot.

[anthonyebola]

Theres dip spit surrounding all of my holes.. not just the ones I catch fish at 

[Scientist]

I had fished this one lake this year about 5 times on the ice. The first four times got nothing, not even a single flag was tripped. Every weekend there would be at least 40 guys with 5 tip-ups each fishing all the known structures. Out of all of those tip-ups and the four weekends only saw 3 flags go up. Every week everyone would go to the same areas which they, including I, believed to be the “spot”. The old holes, foot prints and bait showed that the area was heavily fished and looked like there was a lot of action.  The fifth week went to a totally opposite side of the lake where there is almost no structure, not even one hole was drilled. Set out my spread and after four hours limited out with perch and tied into 3 walleyes averaging about 3-4 lbs. I was laughing that there was more bait placed down the holes on that side of  the lake then there were fish. 

[adkRoy]

Interesting thread. I used to do the look for the most traffic around a hole trick. Now I use lake maps and look for streams coming in, possible weed beds and structure. I find it is more reliable that way.

[kimball07]

i look for fish