Fishing brush piles and shorelines are some of the best places to catch largemouth bass and crappie. Here are a few tips we have come up with to help you score on these prized fish.
#If the water is high use big spinners when the shad are clinging tightly to the shoreline. Cast parallel to the shore and work it back at a medium pace for best results.
#Brushpiles set for crappie can be tremendous places to score on early fall bass especially as water levels begin to recede as they are now on lakes like Sam Rayburn.
These brushpiles bass are famous for biting at specific depth when they get choosy, say 14 feet, and ignoring anything they have to move very far to ingest. That is why boat positioning is such an important part of brushpile fishing. If you get right over brush and vertically drop a live shiner or run a crank bait by it your chances of catching a mess of fish increases greatly. The same is true of fish around natural structure in relation to drop-offs. A good way to fish these spots is to use a depth finder to locate those that have big schools of shad around them. Bass do not hang around spots that are devoid of baitfish very long and the bigger the bunch of bait, the more fish will be around. Using Power-Poles to position as close to the brush pile as possible can help anglers work them in a way that can be challenging with a rope/anchor combo or trolling motor.
#Drop offs around the river channels on the lakes can be productive. A difference of two or three feet in depth is major when putting things in perspective. Micro crankbaits are great for fishing along main river channels to locate fish suspend over deep water when the barometric pressure is running high and the bait is slow. If the pressure is low or dropping try big crankbaits or large spoons (an overlooked bass bait).