Just ask Oklahoma pro O. T. Fears or Kentucky pro Mark Menendez. They admit that laydowns are appealing for the simple fact that they are easy to fish. Pull a crankbait down each side of the trunk, or drop a jig in the submerged branches three or four times. If it produces a fish, great. If not, move on to the next one. Wrong! That's where most people make a mistake.
"They attempt to fish the entire tree with a few casts," say the two pros. "That may work once you've established a pinpoint pattern, but when the bass are scattered, it's vital to fish a tree thoroughly.
"Instead of casting right up to the trunk, where it comes into the water, and working your lure back to the boat, start on the outside and work your way in, hitting all the best looking spots before you end up closest to the bank. If you try to fish the whole thing with one cast, you may end up catching a fish right near the bank but spooking others out in deeper water, or perhaps getting hung and having to go in and get your lure. That, too, will spook any fish on the outside end of the tree," explains Fears. "Pick the tree apart with different lures until you're sure there are no bass, or you've caught them all."
Both pros agree it's often possible to skip much of a fallen tree if you've already figured out that most of the bass are positioned on a specific section of the cover. Most of the time, though, it's wise to probe a fallen tree with surgical precision, dropping your bait in specific, pinpoint spots up and down the entire log. "Make sure to drop a jig or worm into every opening that looks inviting, even if it's deep within a large, brushy tree," say the two pros.
Although lure choice depends largely on seasons, weather and water conditions, not to mention personal preferences, both pros have a handful of baits that always play a role in their laydown fishing. With shad moving toward the backs of creeks and pockets, Menendez' favorite fall lures for downed trees are crankbaits and white jigs that he swims through and over the branches. He also will throw a square-billed crankbait across a partially submerged tree or right into the middle of it.
Fears, on the other hand, typically uses a one-two combination. He works a tree with a Norman Deep Little N crankbait, then follows it up with a Zoom worm. The fast bait picks up the aggressive fish, while the slow-moving one entices those fish unwilling to chase a lure. He also uses a spinnerbait/soft jerkbait combination, and if the conditions are right, he'll even throw topwater baits.
Both pros also agree that all trees are not created equal, and bass tend to favor one laydown while they avoid another that seems identical, at least on the surface. They favor isolated laydowns for the simple fact that bass have fewer places to hide. Shorelines with an endless supply of fallen trees may hold more bass, but those fish can be more difficult to pinpoint. Trees that are adjacent to or within another type of cover, like grass, are even better. And if the laydowns are up off the bottom 2 or 3 feet, that's even better.
"Older logs always seem to be better," says Menendez, "and logs with few branches seem to hold the biggest bass, but they need to have some branches. Straight, bare trunks aren't nearly as good as ones with some branches. I like bushy trees in the spring," he adds, "because bass fry tend to use them for cover, and the male bass often will be right there with them. Other times of the year, I seem to do best on slick logs with just a few large branches coming off the main trunk."
Fears also prefers older laydowns but says there's a brief period right after a tree with green leaves falls in the water that it's loaded with fish. Then, as the leaves begin to decay, bass and other fish abandon the tree until the dead leaves have rotted away, and the smallest branches have begun to decay. He figures the rotting leaves either rob the immediate area of oxygen, or they give off some sort of chemical that the fish dislike.
Here's the link to a video with some tips about fishing laydowns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzWZub0Waps.
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