Locating bass

Boating up to weedbeds does help you learn what's there so you'll be able to sit out in deeper water studying the outline. Good point. You don't want to spook the fish in shallow water. However, that won't help much when the weedbed is submerged. There can be much more structure to explore deeper, maybe only 5-10 feet deeper where there are irregularities in the weedline following changes in bottom that attract bass.

I turn my bow mounted transducer with bottom aimed to the side and take a peek at what's under a mat of hydrilla, or under a block of styrofoam, or a dock though sometimes the transducer doesn't sit deep enough to see under those. I can take a look at what might be around a laydown too without spooking the fish in it. I'm mostly looking for lines on screen made by moving fish, meaning they are actively feeding. I get some wild depths doing that, but if a fish is under it I often get an arch. A transducer doesn't have to aim straight down except to get an accurate bottom depth. The sound cone will hit bottom sideways. Depth will read 15 feet one moment then 550 the next, but just ignore that. You can look up and see how far away the fish might be. I guess I'll post this over in Sonar Basics too. It just fits here too.

Jim

When I pull up to a flat where all the vegetation is still submerged and don't want to spoil it I just looking the shallows over. If I see some above water erosion like a shallow ditch with rocks cutting through, I figure since that was there before the lake was it's probably the beginning of a little creek now below water surface. The farther that drainage went downhill the deeper it cut, so I take a best guess on where the creek went, now covered by water, but maybe silted in. too. If a large volume of water runs into it that often lkeeps the silt washed on down. Where that creek was it still is and runs through the flat, and that is where bass will rest stacked up by the school sometimes even if the drainage is only a few inches deeper than the flat around it. Hydrilla grows on the edges of the drainage down there forming a tunnel through the slop, arching over the old creek. That provides good shade, cooler water, and conceals the bass. That's where I want to drop a heavy jig and scoot it around a while slowly back to the boat. If I can get the jig to follow the creek channel the line usually comes through the plants. If it keeps dragging with heavy resistance and lifting the jig then I know it's coming through thick plants on either side. Once the plants top out the lower leaves shade out and it gets really clean and open under the mat, but by then the plants grow together over the ditch and all I can do is pop a jig through it and yo-yo it in place.

Another item to look for is a rock outcrop ridge coming down to the lake. The rest of it is under water. I line up on the ridge to predict where the underwater ridge should be. Bass will stack up on the shady side or down current side, and near the tip where it might dive off into deep water.

The general diversity of geoplogy above water is a good indicator of the potential of finding interesting structure under water. If the terrain above is smooth and featureless it's likely the lake bottom below that is also structureless, so usually won't hold many bass unless there's some vegetation cover for them.

So my main point is use what you can see to predict what can't be seen. It's the same principle as weeing a log in the water with a root ball on shore. You can figure there's a bass-holding tree top under water. The same goes for geological features you can see.

Jim

Perry added much to my deep water bassing knowledge and I still go by his teachings about bass behavior, though gave up on his trolling methods when I lost the last Perry spoon. I just don't like trolling even though that produces lots of fish.

Campers are always wanting to bass fish without electronics, and many that have sonar can't interpret it. A very common question on my home lake is how will they find gravel. We gets many folks coming here only familiar with brownies, so they want to finds gravel with light vegetation, the golden grail of smallmouth habitat. Well, here's another for instance of geology signs. I rarely find gravel except on long points and almost always at water's edge will be a clay bank chocked full of gravel. Simple as that. The gravel washes out of the clay, the clay drifts away, gravel builds up. I don't see gravel beds in deep covers between points because any gravel there gets silted in.

See boulders on the shoreline? There's probably plenty under water.

Etc., etc.

Jim

Didn't notice this thread until today, good information. A lot of this has been covered in seasonal period post, pre fishing tournaments etc.
Somewhere we discussed where to get started looking for bass and my favorite is the marina when fishing high land , hill-land class reservoirs. Marinas are almost always built where a fish camp originated near good fishing locations and always in deep water access. The boat docks, buoys, breakwater walls, logbooms, etc. provide structure and cover. Today the marinas are being constantly restocked by bass fisherman. What more could anyone want to get started.
Launch your boat, check out your electronics, trolling motor and get your tackle set up based on learn just observing the water temperature, water clarity, depth the baitfish and bass are holding, activity level of the bass, birds and baitfish.
I can't tell how often the best fishing I have had during the day was right in the marina area. In fact the last trip on the 28th of Sept is a perfect example; see the Tips & Tactics "spooning" post trip. On that outing I didn't meter around the marina as is my customary practice and went right down the lake without knowing what was actually going on. However when I did discover the bass feeding on shad schools, I knew to check out the marina on the way back.
Tom