I have heard this expression in youtube video's and read it on the forums. As a newer angler I would like to quantify this a little. Now before you beat me up with the it's relative answer, I know it is. But there must be some guard rails I can use for my judgement. Is near deep water only next to a drop off? Does it just need to be only a 1 ft deeper or am I looking for 10ft or more deeper? Is there a point where it can be too much of a drop off and go too deep. (example submergent grass from the shore and then it drops off to 40 ft and this is all within 20ft of the shoreline) How far away do I consider near? Is it 10 ft, 10ft, 30 Yrds or 300 hundred yards? I don't know how far a bass will travel during the course of a day to move up and down. At some point it must be considered to mild of a grade to be near deep water and I should be looking for more of a drop. When looking for structure or cover "near" deep water when do I quit the search at. Hopefully you can see my confusion. I appreciate your input!

Something that worked for me is breaking a body of water down to a manageable chunk that I could work over 4-5 times in a row, and continually come back to as I expanded patterns and learned more. I fish small lakes compared to most on here, like 75 acres and 325 acres, so I can only guess how daunting figuring out some big water can be. I picked a section that had the geography and depth to support the spawn and the closest deep water to that area and spent time on it. Over a short period of time I learned there can be a lot of dead water. Over a longer period of time, I learned that the water I thought was dead is in fact holding fish but they are not always active. Spending time on this smaller chunk of water over years has given me insights into the ebbs and flows of seasons, water temps, water levels, fishing pressure, fish migration, and even bite windows. If you have electronics, finding the shad would be my priority. If you don't, structure, cover, and bird watching would guide me the most. scott

SMALLMOUTH BASS LOVE FEEDING IN THE SUNSHINE A-Jay

Near Deep Water

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June 22, 20232 yr

Super User

I've been catching some decent bass this early summer by fishing shallow pockets off of deep coves.

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June 22, 20232 yr

On 6/20/2023 at 3:36 PM, A-Jay said:

The last one I was a staunch believer in seems to have gone right out the window.

I must know what this rule was.

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June 22, 20232 yr

Super User

52 minutes ago, galyonj said:

I must know what this rule was.

SMALLMOUTH BASS LOVE FEEDING IN THE SUNSHINE

:smiley:

A-Jay

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June 22, 20232 yr

Super User

I look at ALL structure from dirt shallow to the bottom of any creek or river bottom.

Some of my most productive "spots" non-descript areas with little bottom contour changes.

One of the bass Todd tracked with radio telemetry & foward facing sonar was an 8# bass that was related to a none discript flat on a single stump nowhere near depth change.

Bass do what they want to do, when they want to do it, where they want to do it.

Edited June 22, 20232 yr by Catt
Fingers faster than the brain

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