Why Small Ledges Pay Big Dividends
Story and Photos By Spence Petros

As we motored into the crystal-clear bay, you could immediately see a sand-to-rock edge on a slow-tapering flat. It was a nice edge, but there was no depth change related to the change in bottom composition.

A few hundred yards into the bay, the water color changed just outside the rock-coated bottom. Here, an actual drop of a few feet occurred along the edge of the rocks. My good friend Tom Sullivan, who was running the boat, announced this is where we would start fishing. I noticed the boat was a bit tight to the edge, and as the third person in the boat, I would probably be left with the scraps. But I did very well picking up leftovers by drop-shotting.

Sullivan began making casts right along the edge with his hot lure — a jerkbait. The first giant smallmouth was greeted with shouting and high fives.

The same scenario occurred with the second and third oversized bass. By the fourth monster bass, boat partner Doug Carrier and I were more subdued. As the fifth smallmouth between 5 to 61/4 pounds was landed by Sullivan, I couldn't take it anymore.
"I don't care if it's your boat, we're staying at your place, it's a spot you've found, you're supplying most of the lures, and I'm your guest," I said. "I've been quiet long enough, and you better move that boat out so Carrier and I can also cast along the edge."

I was half laughing and half serious. Sullivan let me run the boat for a while, and I caught eight of the next nine bass. He even gave me one of his hot jerkbaits.

From this successful trip, I realized that even a small edge or drop-off can be productive on an otherwise flat or slow-tapering bottom. I also learned that making contact with the edge with your lure for as much of the cast as possible is also very important.

In shallower or slower-tapering areas of a lake, slight edges that most anglers motor past can make a huge difference in finding bunches of bass. One of the first times I noticed this was while fishing with legendary angler Buck Perry. Perry uncovered a short lip that went from 8 to 10 feet in an otherwise flat bay on Rend Lake in Illinois. After tossing out a few floating markers along the 75-yard mini-ledge, we began to troll his Spoonplug lures. In short order, six or seven 2½- to 4-pound bass were landed, and a great lesson was learned.
Small ledges have paid big dividends many times. Several times I've noticed small lips in the deeper water on shallow weed-choked lakes that were void of bass during warmer months when the fish were using weed cover. However, once those waters got cold enough to cause weeds to die, bass would stack up along these slight drop-offs and the action would be fast and furious.

Edges caused by a change in bottom consistency can also be terrific areas to find bass, especially when they're found on flatter or slower-tapering bottoms.

While fishing in Florida, a friend and I were in a "follow boat" behind one of the area's better-known guides. We were fishing strip pits near Lakeland and not having much success casting toward the shoreline. I put on a crankbait and began casting more parallel to the bank. Within minutes a few decent bass were boated.

I asked my partner if we could go out to the adjacent deeper water and look around. The gain on the flasher was set high enough to get a double reading. When we hit the 14- to 15-foot level, the second signal faded as it was absorbed into the softer bottom. We snapped on two deep-diving crankbaits and began to troll along this soft- to hard-bottom transition edge. About 30 yards into our run, I hooked up with a 10¼-pound bass. Several 3-, 5- and 7-pounders were landed in short order.

After being brainwashed by Perry's teachings for many years, the bass-catching solution was pretty easy. There were no fish in the shallows. There were a few small ones in the mid-depth range, so the big ones had to be deeper. The deepest edge was the change in bottom where clay met the rim of the soft-bottomed basin of the pit.

These subtle changes can appear in many forms. In older, shallower reservoirs where feeder creeks have filled with silt through the years, you will often find sections where slight lips still exist. Remember, it doesn't take much to draw out bass on otherwise flatter terrain. Even on lakes with some depth and well-defined structures such as points, humps and ridges, the harder bottom around these structures will generally merge with softer surrounding bottom to create a possible bass-holding edge.

Weed Edges
Weed edges come in many forms, and there are a variety of ways to fish them based on their depth, light conditions, weed density and activity level of the bass. The deep or outside edge of the weeds will vary based on a lake's water color. In deeper clear lakes, the deep edge may go down to more than 18 feet, while in shallower lakes with stained waters the deep edge might be only 4 to 6 feet deep.

The shallow or inside edge of the weeds is where the major weedbed starts growing. Generally, the deeper the outside edge, the deeper the inside edge. For example, a bed starting to grow in 5 feet might end in 10 feet, while a bed starting in 2 feet will usually go out to 6- to 8-foot depths.

Other weed edges to consider are the tops of the weeds and how far they are under the surface, and the most overlooked edge, where one weed type changes to another.

When weeds first start to develop early in the year, the tops of the weeds are often the most distinctive edge. With water temperatures in the high 40s and 50s, lipless, vibrating crankbaits and suspending jerkbaits really take their toll on early season bass using the weeds. When weed tops are only one-quarter to halfway up, bass will roam this edge for long periods of the day. As weeds get closer to the surface, the weather gets warmer and the sun becomes brighter, bass activity over their tops will tend to diminish. The best action will usually occur during periods of lower light penetration.

Heavy surface cover often forms a sun-stopping edge that allows bass to sit higher in the water column. Two of the hottest lures at this time are Snag Proof frogs such as Bobby's Perfect Frog and Yum Dingers rigged wacky style.

When surface-blanketing cover is patchy or only covers a small section of the water, not much of a problem exists. But when massive beds of vegetation such as hyacinths are spread over large parts of a lake or reservoir, more thought must be given to what edges are fished. When this occurs, think double edges — the actual edge formed by the thick wall of floating vegetation and the edge that may or may not be under it. Weed edges that are in conjunction with a drop-off, old river channel or just about any other underwater feature that attracts bass will generally hold the most and bigger bass.

The inside edge of the weeds is often a very distinctive edge, and staying in contact with it is often much more productive than spraying casts all over the shallower water. The deeper this edge, the more productive it will be under a variety of conditions. Inside weed edges are often thought of as spring spots, but they can also be productive after dark in warmer weather, during fall warming trends and on lakes when predators such as muskies, pike or larger walleyes rule the deep weed edge.

The deep edge of the weeds is usually the main focal point for bass during most of the year. But finding the key spot on a spot is the tough part. For starters, fish the weed edges that wind or current is hitting. The deep weed edge has tremendous potential, but bass will tend to concentrate where a break in continuity occurs. Concentrate your efforts around points, turns, cuts into the bed, where heavy patches appear in thinner beds or where thick beds thin out. If a casting target such as a small opening, stump or large rock appears within the weedbed, then direct a cast or two toward it.

A neglected weed edge is where one type of weed meets another. I once caught a 10-pound-plus bass off an 8-foot-deep edge where heavy coontail ran along the inside edge of a bed of deeper cabbage weeds. The cabbage actually ended at 14 feet, but the 8-foot level at the weed change was the hot area.

I've also seen great weed edges formed under a variety of conditions. A common example is where deep sand grass butts up to a bed of coontail, cabbage, milfoil or even on soft-bottom flats where lily pads meet arrowhead pads, which usually grow on a sandier, firmer bottom.

Current Edges
I grew up fishing current, from small trout streams that you could jump across to large rivers such as the Mississippi. This easy-to-recognize current edge is basically where faster water runs next to slower-moving water. I've found that smallmouth tend to feed more in faster water, while largemouth generally prefer slower water. Although many anglers just fish the slack water downcurrent of some structure or cover that breaks the current, often the big fish will hold just upstream from the current break to be in a better position to pounce on food coming downcurrent.

Water-Color Edges
California big-bass specialist Bill Siemantel is a master of fishing a wide variety of edges. Besides the edges discussed previously, Siemantel pays a lot of attention to water-color edges and shade lines in the water. His popular book, Big Bass Zone, is loaded with revolutionary ideas on bass fishing that have enabled him to catch hundreds of 10-pound-plus bass on lures out of hard-fished waters.

Siemantel may fish from deep to shallow, shallow to deep or somewhat parallel to the mud line. A lot depends on whether the bass are suspending or have chased bait into the off-colored water.

The main concern with fishing a mud line is how it relates to underwater structure. If the wind is blowing into the shore, the bass might be holding tight. If the wind is blowing parallel to the shore and across a shallow section of a point stirring up some bottom, then fishing the stained-water eddy coming off the point could be the key spot.

Siemantel's hottest lure for fishing water-color edges is a large, light-colored tube.
"Always let the underwater conditions be your guide to this and any other type of moving cover," says Siemantel.