I sit at my computer issue after issue and write about how much fun it is to go fishing, but yet by far the number one comment I get from readers is “I don’t know any good places to fish.”

My response to that is there are no bad places to fish, catching fish is the reward for fishing and not all places are rewarding. You have to live with the fact that you’re not always going to catch a lot of fish every time you go out, but there are some things you can do to up your odds at a place you have never fished.

Being a tournament fisherman differs from planning a vacation or a long weekend with your buddies. As a tournament angler I don’t get to choose where I fish so I’m often faced with the task of gathering information about a body of water that I’ve never seen. The process I use to gather information about this new water, so that I can hopefully have a successful tournament, also works great when planning a casual outing.

These tournament sites are on larger bodies of water so there is generally a ton of information about them on the internet making this my first stop. Use a search engine like Google to start your hunt for knowledge; you’ll be amazed by the amount of information that’s out there for just about any place you plan to go.

An accurate source for all the basic statistics like size, how many different species of fish, water clarity and so on for all of the lakes and rivers large or small is the Department of Natural Resource (DNR). Each state has a web site for their DNR, ours is www.iowadnr.gov. They not only have the statistics about the lake or river but also for off the water activities like hiking, camping and biking.

Probably one of the best sources of up to date fishing information are the local tackle shops. They are like a bee hive of fishermen in and out. When traveling to a new body of water I will often go a day early just to find the local tackle shops to get my fishing license for the state I’m in. I’ll look at tackle, not because I need more tackle but to see what the store stocks. If they stock a 1000 deep diving crankbaits in 100 different colors and only 10 spinnerbaits then I know I need to look for the fish in deep water.

I’ll use the rest of my day to drive the truck around the lake or a portion of the lake depending on the size, to get a general idea of what the lake looks like and to find several different boat ramps that I can use so that if the water gets rough I can just put the boat in close to where I plan to fish.

Spending a little time on the computer doing your homework and hanging around the tackle shop gathering information works great when you’re planning a trip, but works equally as well when you want to just hit one of the local lakes in this area. The more information you have the better your chance of being rewarded for going fishing. Short and sweet this issue since the fishing has been fantastic the past few weeks and will continue to be great for several more weeks. I’ve been spending all of the time I can fishing and being generously rewarded instead of writing. Until next time keep your lure wet.