Where to find bass

Ever arrived at a dam, looked at it and wondered, “Where on earth am I going to start fishing?” The easiest would be to just start fishing right there at the launch ramp and methodically work your way around the shoreline, but this is not necessarily the most productive way to tackle a bass dam.
Most experienced and successful bass anglers know that catching bass is all about location, location, and location. You need to locate the habitat that will hold bass. You do not need to waste your time fishing the whole dam to catch a few fish. Identify the productive 10% and increase your odds of catching bass consistently.
As the seasons change bass will relocate but they will never move far away from their home base. The basic requirements for a bass’s survival are food, oxygen and cover.  Find all three elements in abundance and you are guaranteed to find bass.

Food
Food could consist of baitfish, insects, crustaceans and occasionally reptiles, mammals and birds. The key is to look for areas with a high concentration of food, especially baitfish. A rocky bank may be home to a horde of crabs and other aquatic insects.

Cover
Bass use cover as a place to feel secure and ambush their prey. However, bass do not exclusively use cover to feed. They will hunt and chase down prey when the opportunity presents itself.
Wood
In fishing terms, wood may mean the following:
Standing timber and fallen trees, totally or partially submerged.
Stumps.
Brush.
Logs and logjams, floating or sunken.
Man-made wood structure, including fence rows, docks and pilings.
Wood is one of the best places to look for bass but not all wood will hold bass. One of the secrets to successful bass fishing is to believe in the following statement “OUT OF PLACE IS THE PLACE!!”  Look for anything different in any given scenario...one piece of driftwood wedged amongst a patch of weed, or...one dead knoppiesdoring amongst a forest of flooded leadwood, or...a small stand of flooded stumps along a rocky bank.

Weed
Many bass fishermen consider weed to be the ultimate cover for bass. This is because most aquatic vegetation produces oxygen and plays host to a multitude of life forms which potentially feed bass.  
Weed is classed as any form of aquatic plantlife and may include the following:
Hydrilla.
Lily pads. Watch for movement. Spooked bass will zigzag through the pads. Be patient and wait a minute or two. The bass usually come back.
Floating weeds such as hyacinths.
Emergent grasses.
Subsurface grasses (milfoil, hydrilla and coontail)
Green mosses.
Reeds
Look for nice green healthy growing plants. Brown, slimy looking plants may be dying and not ideal habitat for living organisms.

Rock
Rock on its own is not as attractive as weed or wood as it does not produce oxygen or afford bass the opportunity to hide deep within the cover. However, it does trap food and create ideal habitat amongst the gaps and cracks between the rocks, which in turn attracts smaller bait fish and other living organisms. Find the food and you will find bass.
Look for change in structure amongst the rock - a transition between small pea gravel to larger chunky rock, or a rock pile on the edge of a drop-off, amongst weed or standing timber.
If you can find a combination of all of the above (food/wood/rock/weed), you may just have found that proverbial ‘Honey Hole’ that everybody always hopes to find.