From one Bob to another :-)

"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
...
I have been studying the Buck Perry System for Structure Fishing. It is
very informative, but I am still having some difficulty with a couple
things. He emphasizes that he believes that bass spend the most of their
time in the deepest water in the area. (Not to be confused with the
deepest
water in the whole lake.)

He goes onto say that the fish are often contacted by fishermen when they
are moving up or down the structure from deepwater to shallower water to
feed. Even more so he goes on to say that the bigger fish often do not
move
up as much as the smaller fish.

Would that indicate that if your are nailing down 1 to 2 lb fish you
should
drop back to deeper water along any structure or break leading back to
pick
up bigger fish?

In the area I fish there is almost no really deep water. Ten or twelve
feet
would be considered deep, with very few holes anywhere going more than
fifteen feet. I have consistantly caught fish off of weeds with a drop
to
6 or 7 feet off the edge of the weeds, but I have caught very few fish in
deeper water, and very few fish up shallow. Almost nobody I talk to
around

I am not going to try to guess at the knowledge needed for your river
fishing, but will try adding in a few things that I do know. The rough
answer is that yes, you do back up to deeper water. But this comes with a
huge 'caveat emptor (sic)', what Buck is talking about is just some deeper
water that will be nearby, preferably with it's own structure points. This
water may be as little as 6"-12" deeper and may be anywhere in size from a
small living room and on up. Some of the best Bass fishing that I have ever
had was on lakes that had nothing deeper than 12'. If you can find small
fish in 3'-4', try backing up just a bit to around 5', and then maybe 6',
work's for me (sometimes). Your Mileage May Vary.

If you have Bucks' book on structure fishing from his 9 part study series,
the other 8 books will supply you with a brain full of connecting
information. Wonderful series of books.

You might want to consider one more book that is dedicated to teaching
structure fishing, and that is Lunkers Love Nightcrawlers. This book
condenses down a lot of the info that Buck first put in print and adds even
more info, which is real easy to do when you are picking the brains of
people like Spence Petros, Jim Wrolstad, Al and Ron Lindner, etc. I highly
suggest trying to find a 1st edition from 1972, as this was written in the
days before every boat had one or more fish locators on board. The editors
went more into the how's and where's and whatfor's of structure than the
newer editions do, although the newer ones do provide more than ample
instruction on really reading your locator. (OK, maybe you need a 1st AND
5th edition :-).

The guys that do the 'run & gun' method can cover a lot of water and do
well, but I always preferred to do my run & gun's to locations that have
proved to me to be that they may produce good results, although nothing is
guaranteed. Obviously this only works on water that I am familiar with, but
I do like to know why they are in a particular spot at a certain time.

Bob