Hey folks, Glenn May with BassResource.com, and right now, I just got off the lake and I'm organizing some of the way points that I made today. And I thought it would be a really good idea to show you how I keep my way points organized, it might help you out.
I do it basically using four different naming conventions. When I name it, first of all, I name it what's really obvious. If it's a rock pile, well, I name it a rock pile. If it's a creek channel or if it's a ledge or a weed line, I name it what it obviously is. But before I do that, I precede it with number of the month that I found it in. So if it's in May, it will be 5-rockpile, for example. Now the reason I do that is when you are organizing all your way points later, or when you want to look at them you can just sort them by number and guess what? Now you've got all your way points that are good in that month on that lake. Really great way to find them all. Especially when you have hundreds of way points on one lake.
The other thing I do is when I type in the name of the way points, I color code them for each particular month. So for May, it's blue, for example. Now when I'm looking on the map, I see all the blue way points and I know those are the ones I need to target if it's, for example, the month of May. It makes it a lot easier to find those in a sea of way points. Believe me, I got a couple of lakes where I have over a thousand way points each and this makes it a lot easier to find them.
Now the last thing I do is when I, it's the month, followed by the name of the structure, and the last part is the depth that I found it in. So if it's a rock pile in 15 feet of water, well them it will be 5-rockpoint-15. This is great, especially if you are fishing a body of water like a reservoir when the water levels fluctuate a lot. You can find it pretty easily if you know... Say for example you're in May again. You are looking for that rock pile in 15 feet of water, but you've had a lot of rain that month. The reservoir is 10 feet higher than normally is. Well now I know that spot is going to be 25 feet. It's going to be a lot easier for me to find it again because I know what depth I need to be looking at.
Another reason it's really good to label what depth it's at is... you know I see this happen a lot. I go fishing with a lot of folks, and they'll motor up to a way point. They'll shut off the engine, they'll drop the trolling motor, start looking for it, only to realize they are dozens and dozens of yards away, if not more than 100 yards away from their way point. Now how did that happen? Well it's actually pretty simple. As you're coming up on a way point, you're looking for it, be sure to zoom in on your depth finder to find that way point. You'll get a lot closer to it, you'll be a lot more accurate. But also if you have depth marked on it, you'll know if you're in 60 feet of water right now looking for that way point, and that way pint is marked to be at 7 feet, say for example, you're way too deep. You're way too far away from it. You got to get up shallow before you find it. So it's kind of a fail-safe method of finding that way point a lot easier for you when you are out motoring around.
Anyway, I hope those tips help. For more tips and tricks like that visit BassResource.com