In an age of push-button convenience and computer gadgetry, some professional anglers still rely on good, old-fashioned reckoning to determine where to place their casts. Count Anthony Gagliardi among that group.
He said one of the keys to his victory at the Chevy Open (Murray FLW) in February was his reliance on landmarks to guide him to the spots on the structure that he knew held fish. He said his technique is a variation of triangulation, and he uses it every time he fishes off-shore cover in deep-water lakes.
Simple And Essential
Few would argue the value of GPS technology in assisting today’s bass angler to pinpoint fishing locations. For Gagliardi, however, GPS is just the beginning when it comes to zeroing in on his quarry.
“With the advent of GPS, everybody just mashes the waypoint button when they are on a spot they want to return to,” he said. “But when I’m fishing a lake where I know I want to find a particular piece of cover on the structure, I make sure I line it up with objects on the shore. It’s really pretty simple, but very important.”
GPS will get him to the general area, he said, but his lineup of landmarks ensures his first cast hits the fish-holding rock, stump or brush dead-on. His technique saves him valuable fishing time because he avoids wasting casts that fail to hit the cover.
“That’s the way you had to do it if you were going to fish off shore before GPS. It’s real key to getting the job done. If you’re fishing close to the bank, it’s not so important. But if you’re going off shore and looking for something small, you might make 20 casts before you hit your target, unless you have a good lineup with something permanent on the bank. So it’s a lot more efficient than looking for the cover with your lure.”
Straight-Line Thinking
Gagliardi’s landmark process involves aligning his fishing spot with two or more objects on shore. He prefers that one be close to shore. The other should be behind the initial spot and off in the distance.
The difference between his landmark system and what is commonly referred to as triangulation is that he’s not looking to create a three-vector convergence.
“I want to line them up so I have a straight shot from my target out to the two objects,” he said. “I don’t have to turn my head because I’m looking for the line out in front of me.”
For landmarks, he seeks vertical objects, like power poles and treelines. “I want them to be as perfectly in line as I can get them,” he said.
During tournament practice, he makes notes about his landmarks.
“You think you’ll remember them, but often you don’t because it’s easy to get confused when you’re going through your day. That’s why it’s so important to take notes. I write down my GPS waypoints and descriptions of how the cover lines up with objects on the bank. I keep it all in a notebook in my boat, so if I need to refer to it during the day, it’s right there.”
From Notes To Memory
He said he gains familiarity with the pinpoint locations as the tournament progresses, so he can trust his memory after the first day or two. “Once you go back to a spot a couple of times during the tournament, you won’t forget the landmarks.”
At Murray, his landmarks enabled him to start making precise casts immediately after he lowered his trolling motor. He’s considered a local on the lake, but he was working in water 12 feet lower than he typically fishes there.
“I was looking for small things – rocks and brush – on points and dropoffs, and I was able to find them quickly at each stop,” he said. He walloped a 28-04 bag on the final day and credits his landmarking for his success in getting his All-Terrain jigs and Brian's Bee's B10 crankbait in the strike zone efficiently.
“If you’re looking for a single boulder or a little group of rocks or a small brush pile – things that are 3 feet to 5 feet in diameter – a couple of hundred yards off shore, you can really cut down on your searching time with this system. Your efficiency goes way up,” he said.
Notable
> Gagliardi said his location system works on any deep lake with isolated cover off shore. While it may come into play at the next FLW Tour stop at Beaver Lake, he acknowledged that the precision that his system provides isn’t always necessary. “When I won at Kentucky Lake, I was fishing ledges and drops that were pretty large. I didn’t have one particular spot to cast to on them. It was more general areas rather than an isolated piece of cover on the structure."
