I've learned to look for a couple of key things before I fish a point. I look for bait fish or any activity on the surface (busting fish) or I try to find structure (brush pile, stumps or rocks) Then drop a marker. I try to position my boat to where my cast lands a couple of rod lengths from my target. This way I may pick of an aggressive fish around my target. If you land right on the brush pile and hang up forget catching a fish of that point. Another thing I try to do is get on the water when the lakes are a winter pool. You will be amazed at the stuff you can over look. Before my friend got a GPS in his boat he waited till the ground was good a frozen and he walked nearly all the way around Barren he now has 150 way points and he made a little binder with all the way point and the structure he found. So if he's catching fish on brush piles he flip through his binder and run spot to spot, I've seen him have some real nice bags of fish, when everyone is scratching their heads. Hope this helps.