Now, bass fishing involves a lot of fishing the banks, fishing the shoreline, just pounding the shoreline all day long and catching fish. Why? Well, you know, that's where the bass are. But not all banks are the same, and some banks produce better during certain times of the year than others.
So how do you find the most productive hotspots for the time of year you're fishing? Well, first of all, it starts off with map study, right? You got to look at those contour lines though. Wider — the distance between the contour lines means it's more of a gradual slope, more like a flat, and the tighter they are together it means more of a drop. It's a sharper bank. They can produce different times of the year as a general rule. Spring and fall — those flatter, gradual changes and transitions work best. In summer and winter, those more vertical and sharper banks are better.
Beyond that, you got to go and check them out and typically a hard bottom is a little more productive than a soft bottom. You're not going to see that on a map. You got to go check it out and see what's there. Now, now that you've found a hard bottom and you're in either a gradual or sharp bank for your time of year, now you want to narrow down even more.
You want to look for specific types of cover. Rocks — rocks on hard bottom work really well, especially in the colder water temps, you know, in early spring, late fall and in the winter time. Scattered rock on hard bottom is golden, whereas logs tend to work better in the summertime in the warmer months. It's not a hard rule, but typically yes, that tends to be a trend.
If you can find the sparse vegetation or scattered vegetation or maybe a weed line on it, even better. If you get some weeds with some scattered rocks and scattered logs, it's fun. That's when you have the trifecta and you're going to get a lot of concentrations of bass population in those areas. So that's the type of thing you want to look for, trying to find a hot spot.
Now, a lot of guys know this and so if you see this, you know, visible cover, visible rocks, visible logs, they're going to fish them and you're going to catch fish that way. Trust me, it does work. However, when you're in an area and you see that, pay attention to your electronics because a lot of the times this stuff is underwater where people don't see and they miss it. And you can get greater concentrations of fish on those areas — these little hot spots that people overlook.
So if you're in an area, you see a lot of this stuff, kind of back off from the shoreline and kind of look around, scout a little bit, you might find some of this cover out in the deeper water and it's virtually untouched and you can catch some good fish off of it.
Another key element that makes a shoreline really productive is the presence of bait fish, and there's a couple ways you can find them. First of all, look for activity. You'll look for bait fish jumping out of the water — hey, that's pretty obvious. That's a bait fish there. Yes, you can use electronics, and if they're in the immediate area, your electronics will pick them up. But a lot of times they're beyond that, beyond the reach of electronics.
So I look for bird activity, right? Loons floating around, cormorants, blue herons — you know, these birds feed on bait fish. So the presence of them gives you an indication that there must be bait fish in the area because they're hungry. They're not going to be in an area where they can't eat, so look for the presence of birds feeding on bait fish and that's going to give you a good indication that there's bait fish around.
Also docks — docks, man, whether they're on pilings or they're floating docks, they have algae on them, they have microorganisms on them. Bait fish feed on this stuff and where the bait fish are, that's where the bass are. So if you got yourself an ideal bank that's got this — the rocks and the logs and the vegetation — and now you got some docks in there, look out Betty, you got to go fish those because you're probably going to catch yourself some fish.
To throw one more thing in the mix, and that is transitions and irregularities. If you find a straight bank with really nothing, kind of a know-nothing bank, that's not going to be as productive as something that's got some little cuts and coves and breaks, little drop offs. Maybe it's got some culverts along there, little inlets — those little changes and irregularities, transitions from chunk rock to pebble rock or to sand — those type of changes and transitions and changes in depth, those are the type of things that attract bass.
So you want to look for that visually. You can see that just by looking at the shoreline and you can envision what goes underwater, but sometimes it doesn't happen that way. Sometimes it looks like a know-nothing bank, but if you go over it with your graph, you'll see that there's a lot of these changes and indentations — quick little drops. Doesn't have to be a big drop. Two to three feet is all you really need, maybe even less than that. Those type of irregularities are what attract bass, so an irregular bank really helps.
And also wind direction — wind. A lot of times wind blowing up on a bank can turn it on. It gets a whole ecosystem going, right? You got the algae going, the plankton going, the bait fish get in there. It just churns up everything and fires it all up. So the wind-blowing side of a bank can be very productive.
The direction of the sun can be a factor, or with a shadow — shadows are. So in the cooler months, if the sun beats on a bank all day long, there's going to be warmer on that side. The shady side and that warmer side is going to have more activity and more aggressive fish, so you want to fish the sunny side during that time of year.
Whereas in the summertime, shade might be more of a factor. Might be nice and hot out and the bass will be up in the shade ambushing bait fish and they use that shade as cover and a way to camouflage themselves. And so you might have more bass up in the shady side during that time of year.
So pay attention to the seasonal patterns and that sun and the wind and everything else I just told you about and you're going to find yourself some sweet hot spots anytime during the year.
I hope that helps. For more tips and tricks like this, visit bassresource.com.
