locating fish

Many times I can roll through an area looking at the graph and tell if that spot has fish or should keep moving. Other times i roll in, dont see a thing, and catch several off a pile. However, Saturday, and in the past, I combed the ENTIRE lake to find NOTHING. I mean zilch. Like i am wondering if my graph is working. Saturday, I put 31 miles on my boat in search. I finally found all my fish in 40-60 FOW. I don't mean 38 or 39 either. They were so thick you could not drive out of them. probably a 4 mi square area. I talked to nobody that day that caught a keeper fish. Saw probably 20 boats on the water.
My question is: Do you still fish the stuff that generally works for this time of year. Hopefully one piece of structure of 20 will have fish, or, do ALL the fish pull out and in the 40-60FOW water column? Are they even catch-able at that depth. Water clarity was 4'.

Very interesting TC. I used to limit out at that depth fishing Eufaula in the dead of summer, around the standing timber, but I have never even looked for fish that deep in winter. Obviously global warming has caused the oxygen levels to concentrate deeper than usual.....

It was weird looking for sure, like someone had poured a bunch of oil and water in a bowl and the dividing line was at the 40 foot mark no matter how deep the table was. At 42 fow there were 2 foot worth of fish, at 60 there were 20 and it was solid fish. Should have taken a screen shot.

That sounds a little like something WW42 and I saw at Keystone. We speculated it might be shad - wish I had thought to drop a deep jig down to them.

I noticed the same thing Ledge when you dropped into the channel it was like wall to wall fish not everywhere, I put in just up from the dam and across the lake right
on the channel break at the depth of 40+ feet. I did see one boat that caught some small fish. Buck

I know what you mean Ledge. I will try some piles if they are at the right depth even if I don't see fish ( buried in the pile). Standing timber I won't stop unless I see a lot of fish! Sunday we were pulling 2 out if a hole and no more ! Even though there were loads of fish just couldn't get them to bite .

I have caught a lot of fish off a pile when I never saw them on the locator. Going to kaw tomorrow and see what happens.

If they're are that deep, check out the pipes West of Red Bud along the bluff in the 50' range on Oologah. Have fun!

Ledge, just because you see them doesnt mean they will bite, they are hard to see in thicker brush(new brush,cedar,etc).They are also hard to see tight to the bottom. This time of year is feast or famine fishing, shad kill is one reason, they do not have to work for food. The other is there slow metabolism, they dont feed as often. You can annoy them to bite by keeping it in there face, but numbers always decline when you have to put it on there nose. I think many times we get so pumped about our electronics that we forget that it is still fishing not catching. EB

EB that brings up a funny point, we will be on fish and I know that we are on crappie, before long we usually snag one in the belly or gill plate. I always have to tell my partner, "See I told you those were Crappie"!!

On my home lake here in E Tx, we had some really freezing weather that lasted several days and in the process had a massive shad kill. The dead shad have settled on the bottom and the catfish are feasting on the dead shad so much that they don't want anything that moves at all. You can drop a cut shad on top of them and can't get bit.
Same thing for crappie. You can see them holding deep but, can't get them to bite.