The Key to Establishing Fishing Patterns
Reading Bass Structure
Understanding how bass behavior changes through the Calendar Periods and classifying bass waters are good starts in learning to locate bass and establish fishing patterns, but no angler can progress past the most basic stages without understanding another set of factors: structure, cover, and edge effects.
Structure is the shape of bottom in a body of water, its changing depth, points, flats, islands, drop-offs. Cover refers to any object on structure. Piers, wood, rocks, weeds, old cars in the water—all these things are sometimes loosely referred to as structure, but these are cover. These two concepts must be considered together. A bank might have great cover—say, fallen trees or stumps—but unless it’s near deep water (and therefore near some breakline, hole, or channel), the chances of finding large fish after the spawn are poor. On the other hand, merely fishing sharp drop-offs probably will be unproductive unless those drop-offs offer food, cover—something that gives fish a reason to be there at that particular Calendar Period.
The concept of edges is critical to understanding both structure and cover. Observers long ago noticed that an area where two habitats meet—meadow and forest, for example—attracts many kinds of wildlife. Even edges have edges; while some kinds of wildlife make use of the entire forest-meadow edge, some species confine their activities only to certain areas, perhaps a finger of forest projecting into the meadow, and these areas are especially rich.
This edge effect is important because fish, including bass, relate to edges. The edge may be obvious, like the outside portion of a weedbed, or subtle, like the edge of a school of baitfish, or the depth of light penetration. Deep lakes may have a lot of depth variation and structure, but in a shallow, almost structureless lake, seemingly insignificant breaklines, such as changes from one weed type to another, transitions from hard to soft bottom, or drop-offs of just 1 or 2 feet, can be the key to bassing success.
