BOB JENSEN: If you're going to catch fish, you have to know where they are

Bob Jensen Guest columnist

If you want to catch a fish, it’s really important that you put your bait where a fish lives.

That might sound basic, but the most basic concept of fishing is to fish where the fish are. You can have the nicest boat around, lots of expensive rods and reels and tackleboxes full of lures, but if you don’t put your lure near a fish, all that other stuff is going to do you no good. Here are some ideas for finding different species of fish in the next few weeks.

Let’s start with crappies. Crappies are abundant and popular almost everywhere. In the spring we catch them near cover like rushbeds and docks and timber in shallow water. In the fall if you fish those areas, you probably won’t be eating crappies for supper. They’re not in the shallows in large numbers now