well, a front moved past, the rain cooled everything down.  this is the day after.  I'm guessing the fish will be deep.

how to attack this for future situations in both ponds and lakes?

Go to the cover man I promise thats where they are...use lizards or spinnerbaits over the cover...good luck.

Like bassin4life said work the cover those fish will be holding close and tight to it. You may need to downsize your lures to get the fish to bite.

Well here is my bassackwards approach. Fish shallow early with topwater and on the edges of the weeds or over them with a spinnerbait midmorning then afternoon flip them with a jig. I wouldn't go deep I would fish 5ft or less water. Keep in mind that fish are going to move all day long and that if you find them deep in cover at one point of the day they may move to the ouside edge or inside edge at some point of the day. Sometimes cold fronts don't effect the fish as bad as you might think. If its a bad cold front I would fish it the same as that tournament I won on the 15th. I would start with a jig then change when the bite slowed to a spinnerbait and move with the fish.

I fished about 4 & 1/2 hours and here's what it came out to be:

fished most of the time shallow, tried some tubes, spinnerbait and a shallow running crankbait.  no such luck shallow.

there's a bridge that crosses over apart of the lake and its deep there.  I put on a deep running crankbait and caught 2 bass the rest of the time.

keep in mind I was bankfishing, so I didn't get to alot of the lake.  almost a quarter of it I guess.  

I'm quite tickled actually.  I was able to change my preconception and adapt, leading to 2 caught bass.  and boy they hit hard too!  especially the dink I caught.  I thought he was a 4lber when he hit.  couldn't have been a pound.  hah