I personally love small main lake pockets with about 3-6' of water and dormant veggies. They also have to have about 8-10' of water nearby. I typically fish them with lipless cranks, hard jerkbaits if the wind is pushing in them, jigs on the shoreline and other pieces of cover, or big silver and white inline spinners.

Depends.  For me, I'm after the big ones.  Big ones like to hang out on the further most outlying pieces of structure, that still relates to thier eventual spawning area.  It also needs to have immediate access to deeper water.

leading edge of old weed beds and points that transition sharply from deep to shallow  depths.  fishing cranks slowly has produced the most for me but am looking forward to working more with soft plastics this spring and early summer.

Long tapering points with isolated chunk rock

mmmmmmm

The very back of Housen' Bayou 

The pre-spawn season is quite long, and there's usually a big difference

in bass behavior and bass location between the "early" pre-spawn

and the "late" pre-spawn. My favorite by far is the late pre-spawn.

Unlike the early pre-spawn when bass are still relating to the primary break,

they may be far from deep water during the late pre-spawn.

The classic late pre-spawn site is found in the "back" of "backwaters",

on a 1 to 3 ft flat and usually within 10 yards of a shoreline.

In natural lakes, the best bedding flats will have a bed of firm sand that's blanketed

by a couple inches of black humus. The humus is the result of many seasons

of decayed vegetation, and though the sand bottom can't be seen,

the presence of water lilies, bulrushes or cattails are your telltale markers.

Roger

Funny we have the exact opposite problem Rolo. Up here if we are lucky the ice is off by mid-March at the earliest and the fish are done spawning by Memorial Day Weekend at the latest. So we are lucky to get 2 months of pre-spawn fishing. And the lakes are typically so small, 80% of the spawning is done in the course of 2-3 days/nights.

Funny we have the exact opposite problem Rolo. Up here if we are lucky the ice is off by mid-March at the earliest and the fish are done spawning by Memorial Day Weekend at the latest. So we are lucky to get 2 months of pre-spawn fishing. And the lakes are typically so small, 80% of the spawning is done in the course of 2-3 days/nights.

I'm not sure that I understand, Tin.

Two months would be a long pre-spawn season, but granted, it's even longer in Florida.

I've done quite a bit of pre-spawn fishing in New York and Ontario, Canada

and provided you're dealing with a natural lake (rather than a manmade reservoir),

I've found the pre-spawn sites in Ontario to be the same as Florida.

Roger

I just meant that the prespawn and spawn times were so short. On the bigger lakes of New York that time can go from ice out until mid July so it is longer. Where as the smaller lakes and farther north you go seem to have shorter windows. I know of lakes in New Hampshire that don't open up until April and early May smallies are on beds. The prespawn is just my favorite time to fish and wish it was longer.

Early on I like wind blown main river banks or banks right inside creek mouths with pea gravel. I like to fish those areas with small balsa cranks.

I then gradually move into the backs of the creeks. I still like to crank with those small balsa baits around chunk rocks, stumps, and laydowns. But I'm also looking for spawning flats with sparse grass that I can fish lipless baits with.

i try to look for deeper water closest to the shoreline with off shore vegitation then work my way out looking for bait fish..if it is thick grass i use a white spinner bait . if its medium thick i go lipless.. if it is sparse i use suspending rouge or a bagley diving banga lure.. if none of those work i start trying other stuff and drink coffee..

This has been the beginnings of my first prespawn season fishing it alone - prior had been fishing it with my mentor bass fishing buddy who is 69 and more experienced - so I am not totally set in one best way yet cause I am too new to it all, but this year (specifically yesterday) they were busting on the shad in a cove just as the origninal post described on lay lake - in 3-6 feet of water - I caught 2 nice ones on a lipless crank.  But I agree with RoLo for sure - the late spawn I know I go shallow - that is my favorite time of the year and location personally!!