Wood Cover for Bass

Wood, as cover, is any wood large enough to provide bass shelter, shade or an ambush point. Wood as cover, can be categorized as brush piles, laydowns, Stumps/Standing Timber, and Logs.

Why is Understanding Wood Cover Important?

Understanding wood cover is important to:

Find Bass: Finding wood cover often at different depths.
Select the Best Lure: Targeting wood requires lures and presentations that avoid snags.

Wood Options

Brush Piles: A brush pile is a submerged brush or trees with branches.
- Depth: Brush piles are found at any depth and in some cases are placed in locations by humans.
- Made Made: In some lakes brush piles are introduced by crappie fisherman and bass fisherman. There are commercially made brush piles and some are introduced with gps locations to promote bass fishing.

Laydowns: A laydown is a tree that has fallen in the lake typically found in shallow water on shoreline structures.
- Bottom Compositions: Some suggest bass prefers hard bottom laydowns than soft bottom.
- New vs Old: New may provide better cover as they can provide a larger area.
- Waves: Some suggest that bass will leave laydowns during wavy situations due to the challenge of staying on the cover.

Stumps/Standing Timber: Also called pole timber, are trees that have been cut off, worn off by water at the surface, or standing above the surface alive or dead.
- Reservoirs: Many if not most reservoirs have stumps and standing timber.
- Cypress Trees: Similar to standing timber with the tree providing additional shade.
- Shade: Larger vertical wood cover provides bass shade.
- Suspended Bass: Standing timber provides bass cover throughout the water column.
- Stump Roots: Larger stumps and standing timber can provide large root systems that also provide cover close to the bottom, especially hard bottom.

Logs: Logs, common near old sawmills and also found in groups or isolated often on flat structures.
- Quantity & Layers: Some suggest the large bass will command the best locations that provide the maximum cover typically multiple logs – log piles.

Additional Considerations

Bigger is Better: Some suggest the largest wood covers hold the most or largest bass.
Creek Channel Structures: Underwater creeks channel shores have a larger variety of wood in reservoirs some suggest provides better or different wood cover. Also, the structure provides access to deeper water.
Crawfish: Crawfish, common in rocks, also eat moss and algae off wood, thus attracting bass.
Boat Positioning: Choosing the distance (and location based on wind direction) in hopes of not spooking the bass depending on lure choice, water clarity, wind/waves.
Start Close First: Some suggest when casting to wood such as a laydown casting to farthest from the shore first and move closer in case there is more than one bass on that cover. In other words, don’t spook the second bass.
Make Contact: Choosing a lure and presentation, possibly leveraging the wind, that will come into contact with the wood.
Idle Over First: Some suggest when fishing deep (offshore), choosing to idle order may help as you can identify fish and it might stir it up or it could spook them. On busy lakes it may make no difference as they are used to boats.
Lift Rod Straight Up Repeatedly : During the retrieve lift the rod tip up lifting the lure over the brush when using a bottom lure to minimize the number of snags.
Past the Brush: Even with bottom lures cast them past the brush and drag them back using the lifting rod technique discussed above.
Small Brush Pile: Small brush pilesdo not get as much pressure and still can hold a fish or two.
Lure Priority: Start with a swim bait then a more contact based lures finalizing a finesse lure weedless.
Secondary Cover: Choosing locations with secondary cover for example, grass, rocks, etc.
Watch the Shore: When on plane and looking for a particular cover watch the shore as the cover on the shore has a higher probability of being the cover near shore and even offshore.
Transitions: Choosing transitions from one cover to another cover for example grass to wood can be a higher probability.
Bottom Lures: Wood can be challenging for snags as such when using bottom lures in deep water drop the lure directly over the target cover. Also, a weedless rig may also help reduce the number of snags.