What are your favorite bass lures for fishing docks ? Off the top of my head I think of pitching arky jigs or casting swim jigs reeled parallel to docks . For soft plastics I think of pitching stick worms (either T- rigged or wacky) . Spinner baits and chatter baits  may work (although not my first choice I think of) and lastly for top water I would think poppers worked around dock points may produce … What dock fishing  techniques have worked best for you ? 

From April until September or so docks get hammered around here.   You've got to get something under them if you want to catch anything decent.   

 

When I fish docks I usually skip a wacky, a jig or a lipless crank bait way up under the dock.  

I've had decent luck tossing a curly tail worm TX rigged and fished extremely slow with small twitches parallel to the dock. My pitching skills to get way under docks need a lot of improvement. 

Whatever I got tied on!

Wacky rigged senko on a drop shot. I can pitch the weight way back...and it pulls the senko so far back. Deadly. 

Zoom flukes Skip very well.

Skipping Yum Dingers and BPS Stik-O's with M/MH rods and spinning and spincast reels depending ...

 

Good Fishing

Fat Ika

https://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-videos/lake-guntersville-2012.html

Senkos, jigs and dropshot, primarily. 

Spinnerbaits, chatterbaits and lipless when I have comfortable clearance.

 

I have a longstanding mental issue regarding snags around docks.  I am unwilling to leave hooks in lines and ropes and probably go too far out of my way to avoid them with open hooks. 

I use a two-pronged approach around docks.

 

1) Early in the morning before the sun is too high, I target areas around them with faster moving lures like a buzz bait, spinnerbait, or chatterbait.  Angles are key.  If you can bump them into a post, that is often when a fish will strike.

 

2) As the sun gets higher, and there's less shade, I switch to a wacky rig stickbait, a fluke, or a tube.  They all skip well.

 

I don't use anything with lead weights like a jig, or anything with treble hooks around docks anymore.  Weights make noise when you bang into something and treble hooks get hung up too easily.  I try to respect people's private property which include their docks, lifts, covers, and anything else that might be there.  And if I see someone on their dock or in their yard, I don't fish that specific one.  I move on to the next one.  Anything I can do to potentially avoid confrontation.  I am not a lakeshore owner and never will be so I try to put myself in their shoes.  I would not want someone banging lures off my stuff.

My biggest largemouth of the season in 2023 came from under a dock in early July.  And my friend's biggest largemouth of the season in 2023 came from the side of a dock in early October.

This guy has accounted for so many dock fish it isn't even funny. Texas-rigged with a 1/8 oz weight, unpegged. 

 

Wacky rig weightless with a senko  type bait by

Senko/Yum Dingers/etc Wacky rigged weightless

or

Zoom Trick Worm T-Rigged weightless.

Thanks for replies to date - sides of docks and way back underneath docks may require some different approaches (i.e. baits that skip well) .

Senkos and jigs for skipping.  Magdrafts or big cranks to call them out. Regular sized crankbaits and BFS stuff around the edges.

Worm/jig/spinnerbait/buzzbait/chatterbait/swimbait.

Another thing that works around docks at some times.   Burn a buzz bait or spinner bait around the dock, then follow up with something slower.   I think burning the first baits wake the bass up.  

You can skip a Hudd 68 so far under docks. It's amazing 

I use the usual suspects - fat ikas, senkos, jigs.  Years ago I was skipping a sammy quite a bit.   It's a high risk cast, but you get a quiet slurp from a monster, and it's worth it. 

I fish a lot of docks on Lake Sinclair here in middle Georgia, like, a looot.  My most productive baits are mostly skipped under docks and those baits are a finesse jig, a shakyhead with a trick worm, and a wacky rig.

 

Alternatively, as has already been said, beat up the docks posts with your choice of moving bait.  Mine happen to be a squarebill crankbait and a spinnerbait.

 

Finally, shakyheads don't skip well, but a larger bodied worm like a Senko or YUM Dinger manages to improve that.

Senko, Buzzbait, Senko, Spinnerbait, Senko, jig, Senko, and.....Senko.

Three favorites; Jig/trailer, Tube bait, crankbait tuned to run under one side of the dock.

Tube with a 1/16 internal weight, Senko, jig.  

The Ol' Dixie jet spoon.