Back when someone bought property on lakes with bass, bluegill, perch, and maybe northern pike on them they would "fix" the lake in certain ways. This all took place during the winter. People would drive out onto the thick ice and dump load after load of sand on the ice. Then they would smoothe it out so it was fairly even at about a foot deep. When the ice melted in the spring the sand would drop to the bottom to make the perfect bass breeding bed. Bass will clean out a patch in late May and early June for spawning. They would always do so on the sandy bottom. So that gave anglers a shot at pre-spawn fish and then females sitting on their brood. The females weren't hungry but would bite at anything that came near their brood (little babies). 

Second, these people would also build "cribs" called so because they were a place for the baby fish to hide from the big fish. Once again, as the ice got thick they would pull these contraptions they had built out onto the ice, usually right about where the sand was placed in earlier seasons. The contraption would be made of large logs stripped of all the bark, almost like log cabin building logs. They would build a frame in a cube shape from the large logs and then place smaller stripped logs, about the same size as flagpoles along the sides. These would be spaced in such a way as to keep the larger fish from fitting between the poles. That way the little guys could slip right into the crib to hide from the large predators.

These two methods were done by multiple people living on the lake to create a way for the fish that would breed in the lake to continue to grow making the number of catchable fish larger. Most lakes have cribs all over the place with the nice sandy bottoms. During the spawn as the patches are cleared for breeding, the water is so clear that you can look right down from your boat and see the patches. Fishing around those patches gave you a better chance of catching one of the giants in the lake. So beside the docks, tree roots, weeds, lily pads, and all of the regular spots to fish for game fish, always look down to the bottom of the lake for a crib. We used to take a coffee can and put plexiglass on the bottom so we could stick the can in the water and see everything below as clear as a bell. We would do the same thing with a gallon pickle jar, but since everything is in plastic these days you can hardly find the materials to make that happen. I'm sure you can find underwater viewers to do the same thing.

Good luck and good fishing (catching)