Great tips man. I fished a tourney last weekend. Had it stuck in my head that I needed to be fishing deep...wasted all morning. Finally around 1 oclock, the wind got to blowing so we backed into a cove to get out of the wind, immediately started hammering fish. I feel like if we would have tried shallow water earlier in the day, we would have likely had a better showing at the weigh in.
Now that the ice thick and fishable using cut bait (fallfish) has been the hot ticket for larger channel cats. Finding that pieces about 3/4 to 1 inch is just the right size. Fishing 1-2 foot off the bottom.