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What areas hold bass tight to cover in winter?

During the winter season, bass tend to seek out specific types of cover where they can stay protected and insulated from the cold conditions. Based on the video context provided by TacticalBassin, here are some of the specific locations where bass will likely be found close to cover in the winter:

  1. Hard Cover: Bass will pull right up to any available hard cover for shelter. This can include brush piles, rocky outcrops, and laydown trees. They often position themselves at the tip of a laydown tree or on the sides of obvious structure like a rocky point.

  2. Deep Water Access: Bass prefer areas where they can easily access deep water. This means they will be near steep, rocky banks or the ends of long tapering points that provide a quick drop-off to deeper zones.

  3. Near Shore Transitions: On long tapering points that gradually slope into the water, bass will often stay near the shore where the point transitions into a normal shoreline, creating a "corner pocket" where they can sit deep yet close to the bank.

  4. Offshore Structure: In lowland reservoirs, bass will be on the sides of humps or at the ends of points. They prefer spots where they have deep water close by so they can make minimal movements to adjust their depth.

  5. Island Tops and Humps: In larger bodies of water, bass will gravitate towards areas where channels come close to island tops and humps, providing them with deep water access and potential feeding opportunities.

  6. Docks and Pilings: In fisheries with docks, the biggest bass tend to sit just off the end of the dock, in slightly deeper water than where the dock ends. They position themselves to easily move in to feed if desired.

  7. Other Hard Cover: Depending on the fishery, hard cover could also include man-made objects like dock pilings or even a garbage can that has ended up in the water. Bass will use these as cover, especially if they're located at the right depth.

Remember, every bite you get during the winter can provide key information about the bass' location and preferences, so pay close attention to where you get bites and the depth at which you find fish. Depth and access to deep water are critical factors in locating bass during the cold months.

Related videos
Transcript
04:18
06:52
Video
Where Do Bass Go In The Heart Of Winter? ( Ponds, Lakes, Reservoirs ) by TacticalBassin → they'll be way back in there they're back there in the fall chasing Bait fish eating shallow soon as it starts getting cold the colder and colder it gets the farther out they'll back out but they'll typically go right down the hall are right down the gut and they'll only go as far as they have to to get insulated from the conditions so if you are mobile if you're in a little tin boat or something uh it pays not only to fish right down at the dam but also to work your way up that gut and see if you could find a second grouping of fish and then the third thing will be if there is hard cover in that place they will pull right to that hard cover you know if there's a brush pile if there's a rocky outcrop if there's a laid down tree they'll be out at the tip of that tree they'll be on those obvious places too now for the guy whose Pond either is very little Contour so it's very shallow uh or it just doesn't have a lot going on not not a lot of hard cover depth is key those fish will pull to the deepest available water now that water might only be 5T deep on some shallow pond in the South it might be 20 5 ft deep in the next Pond but they'll pull to that deepest water location and it might be
Transcript
03:12
05:59
Video
Where Do Bass Go During The Fall To Winter Transition? (And How To Catch Them) by TacticalBassin → varies from one place to another out here where we are this is Clear Lake in California water temps here typically just get down to the high 30s low 40s if we have a cold winter it'll get all the way down to about 36 degrees but we rarely get colder than that obviously guys in the North your water it's going to freeze up guys in the south you don't get anywhere near as cold so that will be a factor in how tight these fish bunch the colder the water the more they congregate the more the they bunch up and the more they just focus on survival less on eating because their metabolisms are low during those cold months so less on eating more on just getting through it but that doesn't mean that you can't catch them we will circle back on the baits in just a moment so the actual locations let's focus on that where do you start your search these fish are headed towards a deep water access typically you're steeper rockier banks or where the fish are going to focus that way they can make small moves they don't want to travel way back into a shallow bay to feed this time of year and have to come back out that doesn't work well for them because again metallic metabolism is low water is cold they don't want to make big moves they don't want to move quickly they just want to
Transcript
07:06
10:03
Video
Where Are Bass In Winter? (And The Tricks We Use To Catch Them) by TacticalBassin → you're on a boat and you can cover water hit a handful of these spots once you get bit pay attention to every bite you get this time of year every single bite because it's giving you information it's helping you build a pattern and most importantly like I said in the beginning these fish are not going anywhere so every bite is key information because it can unlock something that you can do day after day after day after day and just have a blast lowland reservoir guys it's really very similar but you have a lot more offshore structure so the fish are going to be sitting on the sides of humps they'll be sitting on the ends of long tapering points and then again pinch points uh the key with those locations is that these fish love deep water access so the point itself may be a very long slow tapering point and it takes 500 yards to get out to 30 feet of water it's okay that that's shallow as long as the side breaks to Deep Water they'll either sit at the very end right where it rolls they'll sit there or they'll sit right up near shore where that long tapering Point transitions onto a normal Shoreline they'll sit kind of right there in that corner pocket but both of those locations up there tight and way out there at the end are locations where they can sit deep and be comfortable but
Transcript
03:55
06:30
Video
Where Do Bass Go In Winter? (And How To Catch Them!) by TacticalBassin → you're gonna look for those key areas where those channels come close to island tops and humps and that's where those fish are going to stay pond fishermen fairly fairly simple go to your deepest water if your water on your dam is typically going to be your deepest in the pond if you have lots of structure in your pond so you got some laydowns and such fish the areas where those lay downs come closest to that deep water again deep water access these fish are going to want deep water access those are the key areas with rock or some kind of structure that they can call home river fishermen fairly simple look for that same type of stuff off of current seams or out of the current look for current breaks because those fish don't want to live in the current year around so they're going to pull away from it they're going to look for the high spots they're going to look for areas where they can and get out of that current but still live close to it with deep water access close by now now that we've kind of brushed through or covered where these fish go or what to look for in your highlands your lowlands your ponds your rivers now let's talk about how to catch them and really there's two two ends of the spectrum on on what you want to do how you want to target these fish
Transcript
13:19
15:54
Video
Where Do Bass Go In The Heart Of Winter? ( Ponds, Lakes, Reservoirs ) by TacticalBassin → at the top of the break those fish tend to want to feed fish that are at the bottom of the brake tend to be shut down because they tend to move up when they want to feed and then they move down when they sort of want to insulate themselves and just sit around um but again those are all great places to look you can also check the big Hollows on Fisheries like that so uh contour lines again become critical uh you know I think of a place like Clear Lake where Tim and I came from and uh one end of Clear Lake is very predictable the other end's a giant Bowl well out there in that giant Bowl it takes miles miles literal miles for there to be any significant transition just to gain a few feet of transition so in a place like that those fish are still out there but they are so specific on depth if you find them at 8 and 1/2 feet I mean they are at 8 and 1/2 ft everywhere and if you can find any transition if you can find a single piece of brush that somehow got out there if you can find a little stick that blew in and sunk if you find a rock out there or a tire that somehow drifted off of a dock if it's at the right depth those fish will pile on
Transcript
07:00
09:43
Video
Where Do Bass Go In Winter? (And How To Catch Them) by TacticalBassin → third place that these fish are going to show up is going to be on hard cover and again depending on your fishery that can vary a little bit we could be talking about hard cover as dock pilings we could be talking about hard cover as lay down trees in the water we could be talking about it as a garbage can that rolled into the lake in the middle of a windy day but the fish are gonna get right up against that cover and again depth varies on a lot of our bodies of water what we see is that the fish will go to the ends of the docks and the biggest fish sit just off the end of the dock three to ten feet off the end of the last piling we sit out there in the open but they're able to move in and feed if they want to but that seems to be where they're comfortable so if the dock ends in say 15 feet of water you're expecting those fish somewhere in 17 to 20 feet of water right in front of the dock now in other Fisheries where you don't have the depth those fish are gonna get right up tight to the lay down trees logs in the water pilings rocks they're gonna get right up against that cover now here's the key the very best pieces of cover whether we're talking about old dilapidated dock pilings that
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