Good day natural lake fisherfolk, a question..  On grass lakes with good deep structure how common is it to find fish out on/along that deeper structure, beyond the deepest vegetation?  I'm wondering if it's purely a transitional thing, where the deep fish are only moving through briefly on their way up to feed, or if that deeper, more barren structure (maybe with some rocks, on occasion) is actually a place where they set up.  I virtually never venture out beyond the vegetation and am wondering if that's a mistake.  Thanks.

I can't speak to a bunch of different situations, but I can say that there's a lot less pressure out there, so it's worth checking out. Could be your own secret honey hole with little to no pressure.

From my experience up here in MN, I've found that offshore structure only holds large numbers of bass if its connected to shorelines by fairly shallow water. By shallow I mean a flat or saddle under 20'. Its seems that largemouth don't like to travel over deep basin areas without cover. I've fished some beautiful offshore spots that have been devoid of life - my theory is that the bass need a highway from spawning areas in order to get there.

9 minutes ago, J Fitz said:

From my experience up here in MN, I've found that offshore structure only holds large numbers of bass if its connected to shorelines by fairly shallow water. By shallow I mean a flat or saddle under 20-25'. Its seems that largemouth don't like to travel over deep basin areas without cover.

So I'm guessing this little hump might be a good spot? This is part of Lake Minnetonka in the bay I normally fish.

 

Thanks for the replies TX, JF and MN.  Re: the map snap I'd immediately wonder which bay.  Given the hump shown is in the 11-12' range it'd need to be in a pretty fertile bay for that depth to be outside the weedline.  If that's the case here, thanks for the fine example and my question to you - do you regularly find fish on it?

 

Here's another example from Tonka, a nice little deeper point in a pretty clean bay (weedline ~14').  My question is whether a point like this, too deep for weed growth (assume no rock) but excellent from a purely structural standpoint, would be a check or a pass.  Opinions, anyone?

 

Always worth checking! You could idle over a spot like that and look for fish in 5 mins. I've found that the real deep spots I've had success on don't seem to fire up until late in the summer. Worth keeping in mind if you're checking spots in June or July.