How to Find the Best Fishing Spots Anywhere (Smart Fishing Spots Tutorial)

Ever pull up to a spot that screamed FISH, only to discover the fish didn’t get the memo?

A few easy-to-miss factors can turn a great spot into dead water, even when everything looks perfect.

That’s why we built Smart Fishing Spots.

In this video, I’ll show you how to uncover hidden structure, find public access, save waypoints, turn catch photos into fishing intel, and avoid the biggest Smart Spot mistake.

You’ll also learn my simple ABC method for deciding whether to stay or move on.

Watch this before your next trip and stop donating hours to fishless water!

Beginner? Intermediate? Advanced? Start Your Fishing School Journey Here.

Featured Software:

• Smart Fishing Spots

Start With The Smart Spots

The highlighted areas on the map are called Smart Spots.

These zones have a higher probability of holding feeding fish based on factors such as:

• Date and season
• Time of day
• Tide cycle
• Wind and weather
• Barometric pressure
• Structure
• Water movement

You can move the time bar to see how the recommended areas change throughout the day.

Smart Spots should be treated as high-probability zones, not guaranteed fishing locations. Fish and bait move, and changing conditions can make a normally productive area temporarily unproductive.

Use the platform to identify the right neighborhoods. Once you arrive, look for bait, birds, current, surface strikes, and other signs of life.

If a spot is not producing, move to the next promising area.

Evaluate Every Spot With The ABC Method

Once Smart Fishing Spots guides you to a promising zone, evaluate it using the ABC Method:

1. Ambush points
2. Bait
3. Current

Redfish, speckled trout, snook, and flounder are ambush predators. Look for shoreline points, creek mouths, oyster bars, grass lines, mangroves, dock pilings, ledges, and depth changes.

The best locations often combine multiple types of structure.

A dock with shade, oyster-covered pilings, seagrass, and deeper water will usually have more potential than a dock surrounded by featureless sand.

Next, confirm that bait is present. Maps can show structure and predict water movement, but they cannot confirm exactly where the bait will be.

Look for jumping mullet, flickering baitfish, working birds, nervous water, and visible feeding activity.

Finally, look for current. Moving water carries food past structure and allows predators to feed efficiently.

When ambush points, bait, and current are all present, you have found a high-probability fishing area.

Use The Map Layers To Find Better Targets

Smart Fishing Spots includes several layers that help you investigate each zone.

The one-foot contour layer reveals ledges, channels, holes, and sharp depth changes. These features are especially useful around bridges or in murky water where the bottom cannot be seen.

Instead of fishing every bridge piling, focus on pilings near strong depth changes. These areas can combine structure, current, shade, and deeper water.

The oyster layer helps identify another valuable form of structure.

Oysters attract baitfish and crabs while creating feeding opportunities for redfish, trout, snook, and other predators. Isolated oyster bars can be especially productive because they concentrate activity.

You can also use the maps to find docks and shorelines that stand out from the surrounding area.

Look for:

• Docks extending into deeper water
• Isolated docks with extra space around them
• Large docks producing more shade
• Shoreline points beside channels
• Multiple forms of structure in one location

For shore and kayak anglers, the public-access layer can help locate legal access near promising water. Street View can also be used to check parking, signs, launches, and access conditions before the trip.

Build Your Plan With Waypoints And Catch Logs

Once you identify promising areas, save them using waypoints.

You can mark oyster bars, depth changes, docks, creek mouths, shoreline points, and public access areas.

Not every waypoint needs to fall inside a highlighted Smart Spot. If an area has good structure and appears promising, save it and investigate it.

Creating several waypoints also gives you backup options if your first location does not produce.

The catch-log feature helps you learn from previous trips. You can import fishing photos from your phone, and the platform can connect each catch with information such as:

• Catch location
• Date and time
• Tide stage
• Weather conditions
• Wind
• Moon phase
• Fish species

Over time, this creates a private fishing database based on your own results.

You can use that information to identify which locations, tides, seasons, and conditions produce the most fish for you.

Final Thoughts

Smart Fishing Spots is designed to make fishing research faster and more effective.

Before your next trip:

1. Select the date and time you plan to fish.
2. Review the highlighted Smart Spots.
3. Look for ambush points within each zone.
4. Use the contour and oyster layers to find better targets.
5. Save several promising areas as waypoints.
6. Build a route with backup locations.

Once you reach the water, approach each area quietly and look for bait, current, birds, and feeding activity.

Smart Fishing Spots helps you build the plan and reach high-probability water. Your observations help you choose the exact place to cast.

Have any questions about using the Smart Fishing Spots platform? Let us know in the comments below!