Structure and cover??

[Guest bigtex]

What is your favorite type of structure or cover that you like to fish?  You can only pick one and keep in mind that the conditions your fishing in are perfect.  With that being said which do you choose and why?

Please state why.  Thank you in advance.

[KU_Bassmaster.]

Deeper Grass lines.  Easy ...... "The bass are in the grass"

[strick9]

Lilly pads, because some real monsters hang out there and there isn't as much fishing pressure on them because not many fishermen are willing to go into that thick of cover.

[DDbasser]

Rock piles on points near a bend in the channel.

Crash a crankbait into the rock pile and hang on.

[RoLo]

STRUCTURE

"Structure" is the primary concern, followed closely by Cover.

The best structure is the steepest drop-off into deepest water

COVER

The deepest Pondweed beds (Potamogeton) on the drop,

pondweed is also known as Cabbage (north) and Peppergrass (south).

WHY

"Weeds" are the first love of largemouth bass.

Potamogeton is the largest family of aquatic plants,

a deep-growing, broadleaf weed that provides

unexcelled habitat for preyfish and predator alike.

Roger

[DR_Bass]

I like to fish thick matted vegitation

[ga_hawghauler]

off shore structure such as a hump, creek channel or old road bed because these get overlooked by all the bank pounders and you can usually find fish here all year

[bassnleo]

Humps (structure) with some type of wood or rock (cover).  Seems I can always catch larger fish offshore............

[ww2farmer]

I like boat docks, or wood (logs/stumps/laydowns) Water temps in the summer around here top out at around 80ish. In the heat of the day the bass will seek shade under the docks (most docks here are in less than 4' of water) Toss a soft plastic bait up under the docks and hang on. Some docks are better than others. Most bigger bass here seem to prefer the docks. Tons of schooling 1-3lb bass can be found out on the deep weed edge, but out there the pike rule the roost. Isolated offshore structure holds some bass, but  mainly smallmouth, but again that area seems to be a favorite walleye hangout as well. We all know how fat and lazy big largemouth are. They don't want to be out there competeing with the pike and smaller/faster bass for food, they also get out numbered on the deep structure by the walleyes and smallmouth. The boat docks offer shade in the hot summer, something they can relate to, and hold plenty of easy prey (minnows, craws,small sunfish). The best docks have some place the bass can escape to, that doesn't always mean deep water, thick weeds work just as well, they can bury them selves up in that after a front, and hold around them in the winter when the lake is frozen and the pike are roaming every where eating like machines.

[K_Mac]

off shore structure such as a hump, creek channel or old road bed because these get overlooked by all the bank pounders and you can usually find fish here all year

Same here.

[papa smurf]

Thick grass or lily pads.  Where I live you can find bass around some form of aqautic vegetation in pretty much every month of the year, but it really excels in the warmer months.  It offers bass food, cover, shade, and oxygen.

[goldenmonkey]

I like boat docks as well.  the ones out in 5-6 foot of water seem to do the best in the summertime.

theres some duck blinds out in 5-6 feet of water here on my main river that always seem to hold big fish in the summertime.

[mwhitworth25]

yea in the heat of the day we always head to boat docks.  

[Reelady]

I love any type of structure that would require me to skip my bait way way way underneath to reach them. Boat Docks and low overhanging trees and brush are definitely my favorite  

If you don't know how to "skip"...then you should definitely put that on your list of things to learn. This technique will help you to reach spots that many anglers pass up, simply because they have no idea how to reach these areas...

If you could skip stones...then you could skip your lure.

Best to use a spinning reel. Tubes, flukes and senkos all are very easy to skip  

[Matt Fly]

you did say structure and cover, but I do love throwing super spooks for big bass on my home waters of Fork. Gotta love the excitement topwaters brings.

AMA (American Medical Assoc.) does not recommend topwaters for the light hearted. LOL

Structure and cover, you can't beat deep grass in 20ft of water and a jig bite.

oops, forgot the why part.    Why, because on fork, a jig has produced the biggest bass consistently over the years and still beats all the other gimmick lures or other traditional styles going.

[roadwarrior]

This is what I would consider the "Perfect Structure"

An isolated hump, up to fifteen feet below the surface, in the middle of the lake or in current on a river, surrounded by very deep, clear water. Having a few big rocks, rock piles and a hard bottom on this hump would be a plus. Bait fish are sometimes attracted to these oasis and big brown fish make it their home and nursery.

Me like big brown fish!

[Guest ouachitabassangler]

Structure: Isolated humps offshore near creek channels, especially where two creeks joined to form a Y junction, is the supreme spot for me. I fish it whether I see fish or not, certainly if baitfish schools show up over it. I fish those to 60 feet in winter, 20-35 feet in summer until a thermocline develops to exclude those. Then I locate humps poking through the thermocline in open lake away from shoreline where few anglers go. Those are where a huge percentage of bass of all size classes above 10" reside most of the year.

Cover: I look for the smallest isolated clumps of cover not far from main areas of the same type of cover, not necessarily the same species if talking vegetative cover. Finding some on a hump is icing on my cake. It can be a little brush pile to a clump of hydrilla. The best most territorial bass choose those special haunts away from the crowd and go largely unnoticed by most anglers. I've been behind a string of boats passing between a large hydrilla flat and some key little mounds of it, not one of them casting to those. I ignore the edges they fished and catch nice bass right behind them, fishing behind. I don't know which is the biggest reason, just habit, or not knowing to find those spots. Those little spots of hydrilla cut away from the masses of it often indicate a little flat next to a large flat, and more liekly to be next to a drop off into deep water, while the main flats often have gradual slopes around them, not attracting the best bass. They prefer the fastest escape route nearest cover that holds baitfish. I'd much rather fish around a one acre lone flat like that than spend hours probing the same worn out miles of continuous weedlines.

Jim

[directlink]

rocks and bolders because crawfish hang around those a lot and I like to fish jigs/creature baits.