Deep water bassin’?

I don’t want to take anybody’s secret spots, but what kind of deep water fishing is there on the river? (I hear about points, old river channels, etc. for lakes and reservoirs) There aren’t really topographic maps of the river showing depths so I was wondering if during tough conditions it’s worth my time to continue pounding visible cover.

Thanks from a bank-beater!

Greg, It’s been my expierience that most Largemouth Bass are caught in shallow cover. I’ve never had much luck fishing anything much deeper than 4 feet of water on the river except for ice fishing. Although I’ll have to admit that I don’t try to fish deep water very often. I don’t fish smallmouth on the river much but have caught them in considerably deeper water.

Wingdams come to mind as a place where smallies would hold in deeper water, but is there anything else? Do fish hold on drop offs or sand bars or other contour changes in the river? I would imagine that the bottom of the river is constantly changing. Just for my own info as a river rat, is there anything to that?

I think it comes down to food. Bass are notorious ambushers and I think they stick to cover when they can. The only deep bassin’ I’m familiar with at all has been over deep weed beds of fairly clear lakes. They will be around rock piles too but it’s been in my experience that there was still a good weedbed nearby. I’ve never had to try deep on a river and one of my favorite bassin’ waters is less than 10′ deep for 99% of the lake. I would look mostly at cover and forage. If that includes a deep option, go for it. If not, keep changing up your offerings along the ever popular shorelines until you find the day’s hot ticket.

Thanks, guys…sometimes I feel as though I’m spinning my wheels and missing out on the pot of gold somewhere else!

Where do they go when they shut down? We’ve all seen where the bass vacate an area that they were just loaded on just a few days before. Often they go deep, we just don’t bother to fish for them. I often catch sm bass in 15 to 17 feet of water. Largemouth in a lake I’ve pulled out of 20-25. There are almost always some bass this deep (when there is deep water available) Seems to me the more negative bass hang down there. You have to fish them slow, and the best deep spots have gravel or sand not muck. Throw a good heavy jig or a carolina rig on a good dropoff next to a shallow feeding area where there are or were active bass and you might be suprised. The action is not often fast, but you catch some great fish. I just started working on this pattern this year and am having fair sucess. It’s the smaller and more active bass that are up feeding, but don’t ignore the negative ones.

Great info jedsall, completely different from my findings! I know of a couple areas similar to what you describe so I’ll have to give this a try when I’m in those areas again. Could be rewarding!

Fished pool 10 the past week and the fish were shallow the first few days, then it stormed and cooled off a bit and then the fish were deep. Got them off points with current throwing crankbaits. Also got some fish on deep rip-rap.