Although I am sorta new at this, I think I can help. I fish a waterway that ranges from15 to 30 feet deep. There are oxbows along it that I fish. My favorite one is about 3 feet deep from the mouth to about 300 yards where it gets back down to about 9 feet. Then there is another stretch of 3 foot water about 600 yards long where it then gets back to about 10 feet deep. I catch fish in both deeper areas and during the spawn I can catch them pretty much anywhere. I have caught some that were as much as 300 yards from anything deeper than 5 feet. Hope this helps.