DIY

Do-it-yourself honeyholes

If you build it, they will come. No, we are not talking about baseball fields in Iowa. We are talking about bass fishing. When bass roam the depths of large impoundments, locating active fish can be a daunting task. One of the more productive ways to overcome the vast expansion of underwater possibilities requires constructing your own hot spots.

Yamaha pro Terry Bolton of Paducah, Ky., along with the help of his many fishing partners, refined the science of creating and strategically placing brush along key structure areas for various times of the year. Bolton and crew spent years perfecting the sinking of brush and offered to share what they have learned over the years.

“On my home lake of Kentucky Lake, as well as on numerous other lakes, if you want to compete in summer tournaments, then you must fish offshore structure,” Bolton said.

Knowing that some of the top fishermen in the country might be fishing weekend buddy tournaments on the lake drives competitive anglers to go the extra mile to maximize their efforts during tournaments.

“A lot of guys run the lake at night and sink their brush then, because they don’t want anyone else finding their spots,” Bolton said.

But he also goes out during the nasty days of winter, when the lake is void of bass anglers, and drops a multitude of cover for fishing in spring and summer the following year.

Bolton and crew may idle over a spot for an hour, marking the edges of the drops and points with several buoys to paint a picture above the surface as to what is going on below the surface. The group targets the best spot on the structure, so it may be necessary to idle around the area to fully understand what is being shown on the map and your electronics.

Materials

According to Bolton, all an angler needs is a good topographical map, a 5-gallon bucket, copper wire, a drill and, of course, the right trees to sink.

“Cedar is what a lot of people sink, but it’s not the best cover,” Bolton said. “Cedars are just too dense, and you’ll hang lures a lot more.”

With the right tree, the anchor takes about 10 minutes to put together, and materials cost about $5 at your local Wal-Mart.

Basically, drill holes on the sides of the bucket, about an inch down from the top. Then fill the bucket with available rock, like broken concrete blocks or riprap. With the bucket nearly full of rock, cross-thread the copper wire through the holes in the top of the bucket to create a mesh net to hold the rocks in place. Finally, leave tag ends to tie the bucket to the tree you plan to sink. The copper wire will not erode and tear loose like common rope will. This is especially crucial on lakes with lots of current, where an unweighted tree can be swept away.

Bolton said the same type of brush pile can be made using an old feed bag in place of a bucket. Fill up the bag with rocks, tie it shut with copper wire and tie it to the brush.

The final piece of the equation is, of course, the tree.

“We’ve found oaks and especially sycamores to be the best trees for sinking,” Bolton said. “They have big, spread-out branches, and your baits can easily come through the cover. Usually our trees will have five or six good branches and be about 5 or 6 feet long.

“We cut off most of the small limbs. Bass seem to prefer limbs with some substance, and smaller limbs are harder to find on a depth finder. It generally takes two to four individuals to load and then subsequently push the tree out of the boat on the spot.”

Drop zone

Once you are ready to sink your trees, mark some spots on your topographical map.

“Mostly we’re looking for points and places where the channel makes a C-turn (where the river channel turns 180 degrees in a small area),” Bolton said. “But we’ll sink brush on any irregular feature such as a bend, point or high spot.”

Trial and error has taught Bolton and his partners where to place the trees on the channels and points. For the most part, bass on Kentucky Lake and other lakes are more active on top of the break, while crappie and catfish will be more active at the middle or bottom of the channel break. The bass make runs up from deeper water and ambush bait in the shallower cover.

Another key component of his system requires placing the tree a certain direction on the structure. Most of the time they are throwing shallow and working their baits back to deeper water. For this reason, the bucket should be on the shallow side, with the tip of the tree pointing down the break. This will allow you to work the bait back with the branches, and your lures will come through the cover much easier.

Bolton also cautions about the amount of trees on one piece of structure.

“You don’t want to overload a spot with brush because that may ruin it,” Bolton said. “You basically want two or three key ambush points.”

Also keep in mind that creating brush piles on areas that already hold fish may cause the fish to relocate.

“If you’re catching fish in a certain area,” Bolton said, “leave it alone.”

Ranger pro Ray Barga is one of the most successful tournament anglers on Kentucky and Barkley lakes. Like Bolton, Barga also creates numerous brush piles every year.

“We’re just looking for places to temporarily stop fish on migration routes,” Barga said. “We find spawning and summering areas and locate the route most fish travel between each area. Fish will use the same migration routes year after year.

“Once you find that `highway,’ look for anything that is blatantly different on the highway, such as creek junctions, ditches or depressions. That’s where we put our `hotels.’ I just want to create something along a travel route that will stop the fish for a while.”

Sinking season

While some anglers have proven that a piece of brush sunk one week in the summer will hold fish the following week, Bolton drops his brush in the winter and expects to have fish on it by spring if that brush is in a typical springtime area. Basically, the brush should be sunk in the areas the bass use seasonally to feed.

For prespawn fish, Bolton and crew will drop their trees on main-lake points or secondary points leading into spawning bays. The prespawn fish will tend to suspend around and above the cover more than they will hunker down in it.

“We’re looking for the creeks and channels the fish will use as highways to move in to spawn and then use again to move back out to the main lake when they’re done,” Bolton said.

Keying on bays that do not offer a lot of natural brush tends to concentrate more bass in the cover, he also noted.

For postspawn fish, Bolton mostly concentrates on river-channel turns and points, and these fish will relate tighter in the brush. Many times the bass will be on the river ledges more than the creek-channel ledges, and a well-placed tree can offer an ambush point for bass that are beginning to school up after the spawn.

For summer fish, main-lake river ledges and C- turns will hold most of the fish. Having several spots to cycle through can often be more productive than just having one or two on major turns or points. In the summer, the better drops generally all have steeper inclines. The ideal depth for many Southern lakes would be 8 to 12 feet on top and 20 to 30 feet on the bottom of the drop. In that situation, an angler can put the boat in 25 feet of water and still reach the productive cover on the top of the drop and work down through it more effectively.

Wrap-up

Obviously this type of fishing can be feast or famine. Anglers have found stringers in excess of 30 pounds off one well-placed tree, while other anglers have fished entire weekends and hundreds of spots without a keeper fish. But having a reliable system for finding and marking your spots and then putting productive cover on key structure changes will maximize your efforts during crunch time.

Understand the area and the cover and utilize high-quality electronics to drop your trees on the sweet spot on the structure. Understanding how your lure feels as it crawls through cover requires patience and practice. Know your brush well, and practice feeling your way through each hole.

So, like the bellowing voice in 1989’s “Field of Dreams” said, go the distance – make the extra effort to catch more fish. “If you build it, they will come” … and you will be on your way to catching those bass others cannot find.