Power Of Planning: OnX Fish Takes Guesswork Out Of Trip Prep

I have fished across the country, chasing pretty much every freshwater species you will find in your local fishing guide, but flying in to fish blind in a state that carries the moniker “Land of 10,000 Lakes”?  

That’s a different ballgame.  

I had never set foot in Minnesota before, but I knew it would be overwhelming in the best way. It's a playground for anglers, but if you don’t know where to start, it can chew up your time and leave you guessing. 

But I was heading into this trip with a new, not-so-secret weapon—OnX Fish. 

The OnX team picked me up from the airport on day one and after a lengthy drive north along with some bass versus walleye banter, they gave me a crash course on the features of the OnX Fish app.  

I had never opened the app before and during the tutorial what struck me wasn’t how flashy it was, or how it wasn’t built to impress with gimmicks, but it was incredibly loaded down with hard-to-find, useful data. It was designed to solve a very real problem: how do you find the right lake, for the right species, with the best shot at success, easily? 

Nuts and Bolts

The plan was to chase walleye that first day (to the dismay of this bass lover), but not just any walleye—we wanted numbers. The goal was a classic fish fry for the camp, so we needed a lake with solid populations of eater-sized fish. That’s where the app proved its worth. The app pulls in years of stocking and sampling data from the state’s natural resources agencies and displays it in a way that’s actually useful. You can filter lakes by species, sort by size classes, and see which bodies of water are stacked with fish in the range you want to catch. 

Even more valuable is the outlier tool, a feature that highlights lakes where state surveys found an unusually high number of big fish for a given species, or a high population in general, whichever the user prefers. These aren’t just local rumors or crowd-sourced reports. They’re built on real data, collected by electroshocking, netting, and creel surveys. It’s like having access to a biologist’s sampling report right in your pocket. 

Once we filtered down to a short list of promising lakes, we factored in one last piece of the puzzle—access. OnX Fish overlays every public boat ramp, launch site, and parking area, so there’s no guesswork when it comes time to hit the water. We picked a lake that had the right numbers, solid size classes, and a quiet access point nearby. From there, we routed the trip, downloaded the offline map, and had the whole morning dialed in before we even rigged rods that night. 

We launched before sunrise on day two. We only opened the app to guide us to the ramp via CarPlay. Other than that, the prep was already done. Now it was time for our fish finders and topo maps to take the baton and break down the lake. OnX had guided us to the right body of water, now we relied on experience and sonar to help us figure out how the fish were using it. We focused on primary breaks, steep drop-offs, and subtle mid-lake humps. Sure enough, the walleyes were right where they should’ve been, and the pattern came together in a hurry. 

By mid-morning, the livewell was full and we were already thinking about side dishes for dinner. The whole thing had come together so smoothly, it almost didn’t feel fair. The app didn’t catch the fish for us, but it put us in the right spot with confidence. That’s more than half the battle. 

That afternoon, riding the high of a successful fishing trip, we decided to pivot and try for smallmouth. We didn’t look at the app this time, just went on feel. We stayed on the same lake and hit high percentage areas for the smallmouth. A few hours passed by and outside of a few lazy followers, the fish weren’t there. After trailering the boat, we checked the app to see what it said for smallmouth populations on the lake. Turns out the lake had poor survey results. Remember how I mentioned this app can save you from wasting precious fishing time? 

That night, we made the unanimous decision to seek revenge on the bass the next day. We opened OnX again and filtered for smallmouth. This time, we looked for lakes with both a strong presence of fish and a healthy population of larger bass, again leaning on the outlier feature to point us toward lakes with a reputation for size. Then we pulled up the satellite imagery and started dissecting the shoreline. The bird’s-eye view let us spot the rocky flats and boulder-strewn points smallmouth love. Once again, we made sure we had solid access, with a ramp close by. All the boxes were checked.  

Scouting Made Easy

Day three started just like the one before—early haze from far off wildfire smoke but filled with potential. The new lake looked textbook on the map and even better in person. With the sun rising, we ran long shoreline stretches with visible rock, used our fish finders to identify boulder patches in 8 to 12 feet, and let our instincts do the rest. Hair jigs and ned rigs put the first few in the boat, and as the day warmed, we even had fish smashing topwater over shallow gravel bars. 

This time, the plan came together just as cleanly as it had with the walleyes. The app pointed us toward a lake we’d never heard of, one that wasn’t plastered across every online forum or Facebook group, but it was loaded. We didn’t need to visit three lakes to get it right. We needed one night of honest prep with the right information. 

And that’s what stuck with me. The power of OnX Fish isn’t in its flash. It’s in the foundation, data that’s been buried in state reports for years, now surfaced, sorted, and made accessible for anglers who want to fish smarter. It’s not something I pulled out on the boat or stared at while casting, but it was the backbone of the trip, the scout if you will. Once we launched, it was up to us and our electronics to finish the job. 

Fishing new water is always a roll of the dice, especially when the lakes stretch to the horizon, and you don’t have years of local experience. But with the right tools and a few touches of the screen, you can cut through the clutter and uncertainty. You can find lakes that match your goals, whether that’s a limit of walleye, bruiser smallmouth, giant panfish or the elusive muskie, and you can do it without burning half your trip making wrong turns.

That’s what OnX Fish gave me—a clearer path in an unfamiliar place. A better plan. Two unforgettable days on the water that felt like anything but a shot in the dark.

The OnX Fish currently includes data for Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Dakota with more states to be added later this year. There is a free 7-day trial available on the Apple App Store.

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