Ditches

[jbsoonerfan]

What do you consider a ditch, and do you look at the bank to find them or do you use your graphs? As I watched to BPT on Fork I noticed a lot of them talking about ditches. In my mind a ditch is where natural runoff from the land runs into the lake and empties into a creek. I have been looking at Google Earth Pro and going through the historical pics to try and find ditches but I just can't tell the best way to spot them.

 

Am I wrong? Are they referring to a ditch as just a separate part of the creek? 

[WRB]

Terms in bass fishing are regional and confusing. Looking up definitions in a dictionary will only add to your head scratching.

Driving along any real road you see a drainage ditch parallel to to the road....that is a ditch.

In Texas the ditch is a gully, in California it’s a arroyo or ravine, etc, etc.

Tom

 

[Catt]

5 hours ago, jbsoonerfan said:

In my mind a ditch is where natural runoff from the land runs into the lake and empties into a creek

 

Right definition for the wrong noun!

 

In my little pea brain it's a washout. An area where the ground is softest & has eroded away over time (washed out).

 

It's has been called guts, cuts, drains, ditches, washouts, pretty much whatever ya want. If you get enough people to repeat it, it becomes the definition.

[Deleted account]

Ditch, submerged creek channel, depression, gully, blah, blah, blah. Fish don't own or have access to dictionaries or a thesaurus. 

[Tennessee Boy]

This time of year I call them the road to the spawning area.  I find them with my electronics.

[padon]

to me a ditch is a deeper cut in a point or flat. theres a point on one of my favorite lakes that runs out about 100 yards slowly tapering to about 30 feet.if you look at the map though you notice a section like a narrow horseshoe that starts getting deeper only 20 yards or so out. when the water on either side is 8 feet or so the water in the ditch is 15 and so on. to me thats a ditch. and the fish move up it to spawn in spring and back out after the spawn. it has grass on both sides too.

[TnRiver46]

Long narrow stretch of bottom that’s deeper than surrounding area 

 

it could be anything from small ones off the main channel like this 

 

 

Or the middle of a longer creek channel like this 

[Deleted account]

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

Long narrow stretch of bottom that’s deeper than surrounding area 

So is a long narrow(ish) cove a ditch?

[J Francho]

Snitches get stitches and end up in ditches.

[Darth-Baiter]

I dug a few ditches in my college days.  Made me study harder. 

[gim]

I consider the ditch to be the area along the side of the road that you end up in when you lose control of your vehicle.  When there's a lot of rain, there's water in it.  But its still not enough to fish lol.

 

Has no meaning to me in terms of bass fishing.

[MN Fisher]

6 minutes ago, gimruis said:

I consider the ditch to be the area along the side of the road that you end up in when you lose control of your vehicle.  When there's a lot of rain, there's water in it.  But its still not enough to fish lol.

 

Has no meaning to me in terms of bass fishing.

Ya - I classify them with retention ponds in highway interchanges - storage of overflow water during heavy rains...but not something to fish.

[TnRiver46]

44 minutes ago, Deleted account said:

So is a long narrow(ish) cove a ditch?

Sure, especially the middle of it 

 

holler is Appalachian for “long narrowish cove”  

 

it slides off the tongue much faster

[roadwarrior]

Like "over yonder in the holler".

 

[Tennessee Boy]

I lowered the water in this lake (undisclosed lake somewhere in Asia ) to show you what I look for.  The areas highlighted in red are prime spawning areas.  The areas highlighted in blue are what I call ditches.  They are cut when the water is low and are at most 3-4 feet deeper than the surrounding area.   In the next few weeks, fish can be found in these ditches as they move up to spawn.

 

 

I'll let all of you linguist determine the proper definition of the word.  I've got ditches that need to be fished.  

[TnRiver46]

Growing up walking golf course ponds, the bass were always in the tiny ditches that flowed downhill into the pond . They didn’t have water in them above the pond level (unless it was raining) but you could see them and know where to cast 

[padon]

7 minutes ago, Tennessee Boy said:

I lowered the water in this lake (undisclosed lake somewhere in Asia ) to show you what I look for.  The areas highlighted in red are prime spawning areas.  The areas highlighted in blue are what I call ditches.  They are cut when the water is low and are at most 3-4 feet deeper than the surrounding area.   In the next few weeks, fish can be found in these ditches as they move up to spawn.

 

 

I'll let all of you linguist determine the proper definition of the word.  I've got ditches that need to be fished.  

yes thats exactly what the place i was describing would look like.

[Spankey]

In the river world they change a lot. Ditch one season and gone the next. To me it’s a drop off as well. I prefer to fish that. I like to fish toward the bank and back to these ditches and drop offs. My electronics are not overly high tech. But these areas your talking about are easy to find as long as they exist.  

[Catt]

Guess y'all don't fish roadbeds either?

 

If y'all did ya know what a ditch is!

 

It's where Big Momma hangs out!

[J Francho]

6 minutes ago, Catt said:

Guess y'all don't fish roadbeds either?

Not too many of these in my natural lakes

 

I kid... I've fished where there road beds, stone walls, and even foundations of buildings and dwellings.  Ditches to me have always been the depression along side the roadbed.

[Chris Catignani]

@Spankeymention of the river world changing...reminds me of a phenomena I see at Dale Hollow which has 27,700 surface arces and 620 miles of shoreline and its a deep lake.

First some terminology: Chemical weathering..a change in the chemical make up of the rocks. Mechanical weathering...the physical breaking of rocks into fragments. Both of these processes are always at work. Its called "weathering" when the rock doesnt move and stays in place. Its called "erosion" when the rocks (or dirt) move...we see lots of this on rivers and creeks.

 

There are at times where I have seen "a wall" of loose rock laying across the mouth of a cut. (A cut is bigger than a ditch and smaller than a hollow).I see this once they start to lower the lake for winter pool. It looks like someone had taken skidsteer and created a burm in front of these cuts. Ive also seen huge beaches of this tiny rock show up out of nowhere. This is cause by the wind and wave action...and it capable of moving this stuff much like current in a river does. You may think its current thats doing this but this lake is huge and is 130 feet deep at places. I fish a lot of places and never see this happen other than at the Hollow.

[J Francho]

Deep lakes have TONS of current too.

[TnRiver46]

39 minutes ago, Chris Catignani said:

@Spankeymention of the river world changing...reminds me of a phenomena I see at Dale Hollow which has 27,700 surface arces and 620 miles of shoreline and its a deep lake.

First some terminology: Chemical weathering..a change in the chemical make up of the rocks. Mechanical weathering...the physical breaking of rocks into fragments. Both of these processes are always at work. Its called "weathering" when the rock doesnt move and stays in place. Its called "erosion" when the rocks (or dirt) move...we see lots of this on rivers and creeks.

 

There are at times where I have seen "a wall" of loose rock laying across the mouth of a cut. (A cut is bigger than a ditch and smaller than a hollow).I see this once they start to lower the lake for winter pool. It looks like someone had taken skidsteer and created a burm in front of these cuts. Ive also seen huge beaches of this tiny rock show up out of nowhere. This is cause by the wind and wave action...and it capable of moving this stuff much like current in a river does. You may think its current thats doing this but this lake is huge and is 130 feet deep at places. I fish a lot of places and never see this happen other than at the Hollow.

I’ve got a weekend locked in for April on dale hollow, now  to pick lodging 

[Tennessee Boy]

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

Growing up walking golf course ponds, the bass were always in the tiny ditches that flowed downhill into the pond . They didn’t have water in them above the pond level (unless it was raining) but you could see them and know where to cast 

No,  No,  No.   On a golf course they're not called ditches,  they're called hazards.   

[gim]

Wheres @DitchPanda?  He's probably the expert on this since his name contains the term.