One of the best places to fish for postspawn bass is under docks that are near where they spawned. These fish will stick around for a while unless the bottom falls out of the lake. Of course, bass aren’t under every dock. This time of year they favor the ones that are shallow, low to the water, and have dark shade under them. And bass also like the docks that have a lot of bream, because they feed on bluegills until they move out. I don’t fool with the docks that are in deeper water, and whether they have brush under them is no big deal. I just fish the shallow ones and skip jigs or soft plastics under them as far as I can.

There’s really no easy way to learn how to skip a bait under a dock except by going out there and making yourself do it until you get it right. I use a Damiki 6-foot, 9-inch rod with medium-heavy action and it works for me. You’ve got to train yourself to skip a bait as far back under the dock as you can, and not just a foot or so. Some days I’ll just start on a line of docks and keep going. Pretty soon, you’ll find out which kinds of docks have the most fish around them. Then you can just start targeting the ones with similar features and passing up the others that probably aren’t going to produce much anyway. There’s quite a bit of trial and error to it, but you can catch some good postspawn fish out from under shady docks.

—- Chevy pro Bryan Thrift, Shelby, N.C.