TAKE THE FRUGALITY mantra “if it’s free, it’s for me,” replace “free” with “easy” and you have the very essence of why bass do their best feeding around choke points. Applicable year-round, the notion of structures natural and man-made funneling water flow and thereby concentrating food sources proves particularly relevant when fall finds fish focused on filling their bellies.
Bridges, creek mouths, big laydowns, river islands — anything that chokes or narrows the water’s course presents a definable path that opportunistic fish will leverage. Sounds pretty straightforward, but learning to identify specific scenarios and understanding how fish will use them can yield an autumn abundance.
Beyond the more obvious stuff, three Bassmaster Elite Series pros shared their favorite examples of where and how to make the most of fall choke points.
CREEK PEAKING
For most Southern reservoirs, hunting the shad eaters in the backs of pockets is pretty basic, but Alabama’s Wes Logan finds some of his best opportunities by seeking out a particular scenario in which contour funnels baitfish into a targetable scenario. Think: cattle chute.
“What I like to find is where the back of a creek starts to shallow up; say, the whole pocket is 10 to 12 feet deep and then the bottom starts rising up and it makes a dropoff, coming from the back,” Logan explains. “About where it starts to raise up
