Mowing the Lawn

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8/5/26

If there is one thing I would tell someone about how to be a better lingcod and rockfish fisherman, it would be to start using your electronics to create a grid of waypoints. Sounds simple. Yet, most that I talk to don't do it. They may have a favorite waypoint on a spot, enough to get them back, but what I'm talking about is a bit different. When I come up on a new spot, I do what I can only describe as "mow the lawn". First I find fish, like the image above, put the boat in neutral and let the ocean start your drift. As you drift and if there is still fish on your graph, keep hitting waypoints. Not right on top of each other, but certainly every 10-15 seconds. If you catch a fish during the drift, do your thing, but as soon as that fish is on deck, if the graph is still lit, hit a waypoint. As you drift to the boundary of the school, and eventually you have a blank screen, fire up the motor and work back to your starting point. This time, set up a bit off the original starting point and in a way that your drift doesnt take you exactly over your previous trail. The ocean will probably do this for you naturally. haha. As you mark fish, hit way points until once again you hit the boundary of the school. After you have done this 4-5+ times, you will start to see on your GPS exactly where the school is concentrated, how far it extends and the direction of your drift that marked them. The last part is important. As you do this time and time and time again, you will start to develop spots that fish really well given a drift direction and some that you are going to go over too fast to probably be effective, due to a different drift direction. There are some more tricks, but this is the simple part of it, and in truth, it takes a bit of time. I currently have 1300 waypoints with 90% of them in 2 specific areas. And when I set up my first drift of the day, once I see the direction, I pretty much know where to move to if the spot I'm on favors a different direction. The key, is to put your bait in front of them for as long as possible and this technique does that.