dont listen to aj he's biased to river fishing because he's lived on it his whole life and thats what he knows best. The river has been fucked all year and therefore aj has got lucky hitting a few spots he knows produce fish.
That being said, here's how I've grown to love alum creek. When I started out it intimidated the fuck out of my because it was so big. i fished the north middle and south pools and decided which one had the features that I was most comfortable fishing and catching fish. I've got 4/5 key areas I will hit all night long now on alum becuas eI know they are holding spots for fish. The thing you can always rely on is bass will follow bait, right now there is tons of bait near any lights(boat ramps and marina) throwing baits like big joshy swimbaits, 3" chartreuse twisters, and xrap 8(twitch and pause) have all produced bass that are under the lights.
The small mouth love rocky areas, some of the points, boat ramps, bridges, and the damn all have big chuck rock. The small mouth are there attacking minnows and craws, so crawdad cranks beat into the rocks work well, swim baits do too.
when I'm talking shallow I'm saying casting your lure so close to shore that it damn near snags if you wait too long.. try to make casts parallel or 45* to the bank so you are concentrating on that shallow water which holds a majority of the actively feeding fish. deep fish are much harder to catch and that hds is a great unit but for now use the contour charts and mark the areas time after time that you catch fish.. as you do that you can look at the maps and find like areas that will hold fish during that season.