I prefer the cover, I loose the most lures on.  That also seems to be the cover where I catch the biggest bass.  Recently that has been flooded barbed wire fences.  Sometimes the bigger the risks, the bigger the reward.

Wood.  All day every day.  Offshore brushpiles, especially,  since they get overlooked by most.  I love laydowns, too.  I've transitioned to more better attention to crowns of laydowns this year.  Or, at least made a conscious effort to fish them better.  I spent many years positioning over good fish and casting to trunks and main limbs without giving myself a good shot at some prime tree parts.  

    Another wood that I've given recent attention to is logs randomly scattered on the bottom.  Amazing what fish you will find sitting alongside a small log in middle of otherwise rather smooth area.  Years with sidescan and I still feel like a newb with it sometimes. 

 

  I can't pass a dock without skipping something under it....and I live in a region with great pads and hydrilla....but wood is where I'm most comfortable 

Grass, grass or bass. 

We don't have much, if any, laydowns in Tonka - so lily pads, hydrilla, coontail, pondweed and milfoil are the cover of choice here

Laydown 100%

It depends on what form of cover is available in the body of water you're targeting.  If there are weeds, the edges (inside, outside and top) are good places to start. Another is where one type of weed stops growing, or another begins growing with it.  So, any change in the weeds is a prime target. 

With rip-rap, anywhere the size of the rocks changes, or the depth where they end is a good place to target. On some lakes, that area is also where weeds begin and is an excellent place.  

Structure itself can be a holding area for LM. Drop offs, ridges, creek channels etc. and if there is any form of cover there, all the better.

For wood, I'm clueless as 95% of the lakes I fish are natural lakes with very little timber if any.

If a tree's in the water, I'm gonna fish it.  Number 2 is always going to be docks, the older looking with big wood posts and narrow gapped boards the better.

Some other types of cover I like are overcast sky, light wind( chop on the surface), or light misting rain. Many times this happens at the same time.

Rock in spring, weeds/wood in summer, wood in fall, back to rock as fall turns to winter. As always there's exceptions, but this is a general guideline for me.

The vast majority of places I fish here are small natural lakes, where the largemouth are overwhelmingly sunfish-eaters.  Vegetated areas have a lot of invertebrate and insect activity which draws the sunfish. And where ever there are sunfish, the bass will be hanging around too. Thus, I am always looking for particular kinds of vegetation in particular areas.

-waterlilies, arrowheads, or reeds (bulrushes) near a drop off to deep water, or in water as deep as I can find them growing.

-cabbage (clasping-leaf pondweed) on a flat or lining a slope, or where mixed with some other vegetation like coontail or watermilfoil

-any shallow vegetation around a laydown

-a deep weedline of any kind

Wow 2 pages in and not a single mention of docks, interesting, it’s pretty much the only cover in the natural lakes I fish. Someone mentioned grass earlier but I’m pretty sure that’s technically structure not cover, isn’t being part of the lake bottom the definition of structure?

41 minutes ago, Bass Rutten said:

Someone mentioned grass earlier but I’m pretty sure that’s technically structure not cover, isn’t being part of the lake bottom the definition of structure?

Nope - if it's organic, it's cover.

 

Rocks, hollows, trenches (river bottoms in reservoirs) are all part of the topography of the lake/river bed...that's structure. These things remain season to season virtually unchanged...you can go decades without structure changing unless it's human caused.

 

Growing weeds, fallen trees - that's cover. These things change in much shorter time scale...weeds grow from spring to fall, then die back during winter while fallen trees rot away in a few years. All cover is 'temporary' even if it's recurring.

Docks lilly pads, overhanging trees and parked boats. 

 

If I'm fishing the bank I like riprap, lilly pads trees etc. 

Buck brush for largemouth and rock for smallmouth.

Your Go-To Largemouth Cover?

 

Darkness ?

 

 

N/A, wherever they happen to be.

6 hours ago, MN Fisher said:

Nope - if it's organic, it's cover.

 

Rocks, hollows, trenches (river bottoms in reservoirs) are all part of the topography of the lake/river bed...that's structure. These things remain season to season virtually unchanged...you can go decades without structure changing unless it's human caused.

 

Growing weeds, fallen trees - that's cover. These things change in much shorter time scale...weeds grow from spring to fall, then die back during winter while fallen trees rot away in a few years. All cover is 'temporary' even if it's recurring.

Well Said….

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike

On 9/14/2022 at 8:45 PM, gimruis said:

Defined weed lines or docks. Both are better with nearby proximity to deep water.

This is my focus as well.  I do love fishing downed wood, but there has to be some certain elements, like deeper water or weeds nearby.  Timber itself isn't enough to draw a cast.  Over the years, I've developed a feel for what's right, after making 1000's of useless casts.  One thing to note when fishing timber: if it looks good, keep throwing at it.  like 20-30 casts before giving up.  Good timber most certainly holds fish.

37 minutes ago, J Francho said:

I do love fishing downed wood

We don't really have downed wood here as cover.  I do see an occasional tree in a small river that I float in midsummer but in lakes there is virtually none.  Docks that stick out further into slightly deeper water and are close to deep water get my attention every time.

In a way, I guess I prioritize docks in a similar manner, and that same criteria of "into deeper water" counts for timber as well. 
 

some lakes up here have no timber, others are loaded. 

One of my least favorite are docks . simply because I do not feel comfortable   skipping a lead head jig  around other peoples property .  I really need to learn that skill better . I'll fish   around the edges and in open slots but I dont like taking the  chance of  banging a lure  off someones boat .

I am going to have to go with pads and docks. I think you can get a really good bag just fishing pads either froggin, or punchin, but it is fun either way. 

 

Skipping docks is also extremely fun with a chatterbait or wacky worm. 

Tree, rock, dock, or grass

I like points, primary and secondary.

1 minute ago, roadwarrior said:

I like points, primary and secondary.

But isn't that structure, Kent?