The reason I right in my reports a tip of the week is I know the more educated the fishermen become the more successful they will be both on their next guide trip and on their next trip on their home waters will be. I have better than half of a course set and written which I WILL HOPE TO OFFER NEXT SUMMER. The course will teach how to locate and trick fish into biting at home or on strange lakes. The up side to this is YOU readers are going to get the first look at the whole course FIRST, you will be my genie pigs.

There are a large number of fishermen that have started to fish off shore since I started to post my reports so I hope I am have a positive effect on the knowledge you are gathering. We all stumble on that hot spot that we are able to go and catch fish from time to time. The key is why are they there and how do we find more places like that spot. What do we do when they are not on the hot spots? I'm sure there will be some of you that will reject a lot of my thinking, and there will be others that just want to catch more fish, will try it and find this stuff works.

All of this information is not my original material. A large part of this information has been gathered from fishing with a lot of great fishermen like Al Laman, Mike Hoffman, Gerry Williams and Greg MacLean who I have had the pleasure to fish with as team tournament partners and a host of B.A.S.S. and F.L.W. Pros that I have formed friendships with, traveled with and shared ideas with to formulate these thoughts. Another large influence on my fishing was Tom Ferenick who taught the BUCK PERRY SPOONPLUGGING SCHOOL. A lot of the terms I will use were coined by Buck sixty years ago. We will need to have a standard of terms to make clear and since I learned these terms years ago we will use his standard. I say this this way because I have heard these terms used in different ways.

Print this list of terms and definitions as we will be using them over and over through this course.

BREAKLINE : a change in water depth; weed or brush line; temperature change; even abrupt color change.
CLEAN BOTTOM: bottom free of debris or vegetation
DEEP WATER: water over 8 to 10 foot deep. In Florida 8 feet is the magic depth.
DROP OFF: a place on the structure where the depth drops to the deepest water in the area.
HARD BOTTOM: firm bottom; hard sand clay or rock
HOME: area of deep water where the fish spend most of their time.
HOT SPOT: area where you consistently find feeding fish.
MIGRATION: movement of fish from one area to another.
MIGRATION ROUTE: path or roadway the fish will move along like a trail.
MOVEMENT: when fish become active, normally used in a positive migration.
OPEN WATER: water free from vegetation and off the shoreline
SCHOOL OF FISH: a concentration of fish grouped up.
SCHOOLING: fish feeding on the surface in a school.
STRUCTURE: a area of the bottom of the lake where that bottom distinguish itself from the surrounding bottom.
WATER COLOR the degree of visibility.
WEEDLINE: the outside edge of the weeds.

God Bless, good fishing
Capt. John Leech