A Few Afternoon Hours Checking Out Backs Of Coves

Shallow docks in the backs of coves at the 18mm of the Osage. Flipping and skipping the baits under the docks and in shade shallow.

After some good success on the lower end of the lake the past week or so, I wanted to check out the bait fish situation and bite in coves in the mid lake level. I plan to continue to check out the backs of many coves over the coming weeks. While it is a bit early for this pattern, in the words of the great Marcus Sykora, “I want to be fishing where the fish are going versus where they have been”. While many patterns are working right now, deep brush piles, main lake point and shallow flats, in the fall the fish will get shallow and follow the bait fish, including to the backs of coves, hiding on the docks to ambush the shad. Today, I did not have success with big fish in the coves that I fished, several shorts and one small keeper. However, as I check these coves, I am realizing that two things are important, the back of the cove must be flat, not really steep banks and there must be bait fish. Some of the coves that I fished today were a bit steeper than I really wanted to be fishing and the bait fish were holding on the secondary points and not all the way back in most of the coves that I fished.