Pitching to Laydowns

[BigMinnow]

How many pitches do you guys usually give laydowns?? I recently caught me new personal best off of a laydown and I only pitched to it twice. And this was my first time pitching laydowns ever. I had pitched and flipped to a couple of laydowns earlier in the day easily giving them 10-20 pitches and flips each. But it seemed that when I managed to catch a fish off a laydown (caught 3 yesterday off laydowns alone) they were within the first few (maybe less than 5) pitches. So is there a magic number? Is 10 too many or should I hit 100 before moving on? Might be a silly question but I’m just curious because I want to up my pitchin and flippin skills now that I’ve got a lot more confidence in it

[Armtx77]

Im guilty of saying out loud, that a spot looks like a bass hotel and fishing it harder than I should, grab another rod,with different lure and fish it a bit harder.

 

Some spots just look fishy and deserve more attention IMO. I dont depend on landing a 5 limit to pay the bills and put food into mouthes either. So, it easier for me to say, throw the kitchen at a fishy looking spot, like a lay down or slack water when fishing river/creek currrent.

 

I was wade fishing the Upper Comite river on friday and there was a little cut of water, where there was some slack water and knew there had to be a fish in that slack water. I changed the color of bait twice and put 8 or 9 casts on that spot, per lure, before hooking up with a 2lbs spotted bass. I threw another 5-6 casts after landing that fish, because it looked fishy.

[NittyGrittyBoy]

Armtx77 nailed it, I give a good spot 5-6 trys, and if its a dang good looking spot I'll pick up a different rod and try it 5-6 more times, then move along

[CroakHunter]

Sometimes I pitch twice, some times 50. Depends on my mood and how good I feel like the lay down is. 

[flyfisher]

My goal is to analyze the laydown and determine all the locations that a bass may be sitting and present a bait to each one of those locations.  Also don't forget to fish the deep part under the water that you can't see.  Some laydowns extend way out into the water and that is usually where i catch my fish.

[Catt]

Same as above plus on multiple occasions!

 

If it looks really attractive I'll hit it early in the morning, mid-day, & in the evening.

[All about da bass]

Sometimes when you are pitching to the lay down, when that bass sees the bait entering the lay down multiple times, it starts to get worked up and will swallow it. I just break down the tree and flip in almost every part of it, or the "high percentage" areas.

[scaleface]

I dont have a specific number   . Sometimes I'll hit the outside edges first then work my way deeper and sometimes I'll pitch to the center first . If I make a good presentation without a bite I might duplicate that pitch might not  . On a good tree i might spend twenty minutes or two minutes .

[Graham]

8 hours ago, Catt said:

If it looks really attractive I'll hit it early in the morning, mid-day, & in the evening.

?

[Oregon Native]

I guess I fish to fast on them but I like to cover water.  If water is dropping I fish near the ends normally but if water is steady I'll hit it about two to three times...bank, middle and end.  Seems like sometimes fish tend to hang better in certain areas and should I figure that out it's down the bank and mostly hitting one of those three spots once or twice.  

[Brad in Texas]

Just a general observation from here in Texas where bass boats, kayaks too, are plentiful . . . that it always seems to me that anglers trolling along the banks in big boats seem to move along too fast. The kayakers often fish slower, more deliberately, because they often have to spend time setting up to hold a position, like dropping an anchor or stabbing in a stake-out pole. So, they might stay on a fishy site too long just avoiding having to pick up and move.

 

Something between these two extremes?

 

The power poles for the big boats, even kayaks now, and relatively new GPS options for sticking in place on water with TMs, and pedals for kayaks? All of these help boaters manage water better, open up the available options regarding how long someone can sit on a spot. 

 

Then, it gets back to personal statistics. Mine seem to suggest that pitching to a particular lay down and just working it from all angles, what, maybe a half dozen attempts, is about right. I'm not in the camp of sitting on one lay down for 100 pitches or something like that.

 

A big part of it relates closely to how we prefer to fish, say power versus finesse angling. For many, it'd feel uncomfortable not to be on the move covering water faster. They'd get antsy pitching to a lay down for too long. 

 

Brad  

[Catt]

There's a whole lotta questions that has to be asked before how many pitches.

 

Is the tree a hardwood or conifer?

 

Is it isolated or among others?

 

Is it located in shallow water or deep?

 

After I've flipped-n-pitched a Texas Rig & Jig-n-Craw, I'll flip-n-pitch a spinnerbait!

[sully420]

28 minutes ago, Catt said:

After I've flipped-n-pitched a Texas Rig & Jig-n-Craw, I'll flip-n-pitch a spinnerbait!

Love flipping a spinner bait very over looked presentation.

[Todd2]

Things I've read and witnessed on the water tells me Bass are more flushers than ambushers. When they are buried up in cover they are not actively feeding. Thats why for me, it seems to be a low percentage deal..... But just like when your stuffed from eating and grandma used to keep trying to force feed you pie...you eventually take it.  If it's a laydown located on prime structure make several pitches from different angles after you get bored...move on.

[Choporoz]

49 minutes ago, Todd2 said:

When they are buried up in cover they are not actively feeding. Thats why for me, it seems to be a low percentage deal.....

Please elaborate.  I an very skeptical of your comment.  I tend to think that laydowns, in general, are very often the highest percentage deal on the lake - highest likelihood of any one spot holding fish -- highest likelihood of holding good fish -- and highest likelihood of getting bit.   I routinely catch bass that seem to have been buried under the thickest, darkest wood,  especially at the crotch of the bigger branches/trunk

[NittyGrittyBoy]

1 hour ago, sully420 said:

Love flipping a spinner bait very over looked presentation.

If you like that try flipping a chatterbait/trailer. One of my go-to's around here

[All about da bass]

32 minutes ago, Choporoz said:

Please elaborate.  I an very skeptical of your comment.  I tend to think that laydowns, in general, are very often the highest percentage deal on the lake - highest likelihood of any one spot holding fish -- highest likelihood of holding good fish -- and highest likelihood of getting bit.   I routinely catch bass that seem to have been buried under the thickest, darkest wood,  especially at the crotch of the bigger branches/trunk

I second that, I catch  a lot good bass outta lay downs.That's one of my favorite ways of fishing is to flip or pitch to lay downs. I would think that it is their ambush area also. The reason they don't bite the first few times is because they don't like the angle, gotta make it look natural. That's the reason you get reaction bites, your in the strike zone. Their instinct is to ambush and most of the time when they hit your lure it's outta instinct hitting it from their ambush area.

[the reel ess]

I'll try many casts if they've been productive in the past or just look fishy. I've caught fish on different lures on some laydowns and even caught one and come back and caught another off the same one, same trip. If you spook fish, certainly try it again later. They have a short memory.

[J Francho]

This fish came on about the dozenth cast I made to a submerged tree.  Two other anglers had worked the tree just before me.

 

[Choporoz]

13 minutes ago, the reel ess said:

I'll try many casts if they've been productive in the past or just look fishy. I've caught fish on different lures on some laydowns and even caught one and come back and caught another off the same one, same trip.

Last summer I caught four bass from one tree - in a single pass over about 10-15 minutes (two of them over 3# both from the same crotch, IIRC.)

  I'm of the opinion that the biggest (or maybe the 'alpha-est') bass gets the best room in the house -- and if I pull her out, then another bass will move in, sometimes almost immediately.

 

[BassNJake]

1 hour ago, Choporoz said:

Please elaborate.  I an very skeptical of your comment.  I tend to think that laydowns, in general, are very often the highest percentage deal on the lake - highest likelihood of any one spot holding fish -- highest likelihood of holding good fish -- and highest likelihood of getting bit.   I routinely catch bass that seem to have been buried under the thickest, darkest wood,  especially at the crotch of the bigger branches/trunk

I am now very skeptical of your comments.

[Todd2]

1 hour ago, Choporoz said:

Please elaborate.  I an very skeptical of your comment.  I tend to think that laydowns, in general, are very often the highest percentage deal on the lake.

It was an article on here that got me thinking a while back.....https://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/ambush_bass.html

 

A quote at the beginning "When largemouth bass feed actively, they move. Underwater observers, scientific experimenters, and electronic trackers all report the same things: black bass hold inside or near to cover when they are inactive and resting. When they are actively feeding, they move outside thick cover and usually travel along edges."

It's a good read, and talks about the importance of repeated casts to activate these fish.

 

Now don't get me wrong, I hit laydowns a lot, but seems like I have to make a lot of pitches before connecting. The pressure at my lake could be part of that.

 

 

 

 

 

[BassNJake]

48 minutes ago, J Francho said:

This fish came on about the dozenth cast I made to a submerged tree.  Two other anglers had worked the tree just before me.

 

Nice catch!! How do you know it didnt just pull up when you did?

[Choporoz]

9 minutes ago, BassNJake said:

I am now very skeptical of your comments.

And THAT is a good thing.  All the interwebs could do with a lot more skepticism.

[Choporoz]

7 minutes ago, Todd2 said:

It was an article on here that got me thinking a while back.....https://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/ambush_bass.html

 

A quote at the beginning "When largemouth bass feed actively, they move. Underwater observers, scientific experimenters, and electronic trackers all report the same things: black bass hold inside or near to cover when they are inactive and resting. When they are actively feeding, they move outside thick cover and usually travel along edges."

It's a good read, and talks about the importance of repeated casts to activate these fish.

 

Now don't get me wrong, I hit laydowns a lot, but seems like I have to make a lot of pitches before connecting. The pressure at my lake could be part of that.

 

 

 

 

 

The article adds a lot more context, but doesn't lead me to conclude that there's anything 'low percentage' about fishing laydowns.  I can locate a laydown with a high degree of certainty -- a moving school of actively feeding bass....probably not as easily unless they're busting the surface.  I don't really care, I don't think, if a bass in a laydown hits my jig because it simply reacts rather than because it's hungry. 

    The bass behavior article adds another piece to understanding what it is we're tying to do -- but, if I read that and approach laydowns as just hotels for neutral or resting fish, I'm likely going to be less successful.