For me.....edges are basically a change of some type in a body of water. I consider the top of the water an edge, as it intersects with air.

At the same time....there are many other types of edges....to include.....

1. A quick noticeable change in depth, such as the edge of an old creek channel in a reservoir....or a steep drop-off.

2. A change in bottom content, say from sand to muck...or gravel....or rock.

3. A change in vegetation, say from lilypads to grass....or even 2 different types of grasses. Or for that matter, the out AND inner edges of vegetation where there is just open water.

4. The shoreline...a change from water to land.

5. A change from cover to no cover....such as the area around a log in the water. The log / branches provide cover, but if there isn't anything else in the immediate area, you have an edge there.

There's no question that just about any kind of an edge CAN attract fish at some point. Fish feeding on bugs on top of the water are a great example...or if baitfish are feeding on those bugs, they will attract predator fish.

And generally, the more complex the edge is...the better the fishing. I think of those as "Spot on the Spot" areas.

Anyway....here's a little lake map I used before in a Topic called "Fishing a Strange Lake". It shows several different edges.

nice .......dave

good info Dave. I am sorry i did not see this earlier. Very good use of forum space.

I use these same observations when stream fishing also.

Brian

An often overlooked edge has been in sight all summer, but following heavy rain a new pool level puts the dry side of that edge under a few feet of new water. That actually makes one edge (weed against shore) into two new edges, the first being weeds against clean water, the second being the clean water edge up against dry land covering formerly dry land and whatever was growing on it. We get some pool fluctuations like that in summer, then the question echoes for days "Where did the bass go?"  The common answer is "They scattered", but that isn't right for summer. They are likely up in those formerly off limits weed edges maybe 12 feet off shore. Anytime I see a band of clean water between a weedline and shore I fish it.

Jim

Good point Jim. And the same basic tactic can be applied to rivers and streams. The key is trying to find water that is clearer than the majority of the rest of the water....and most of the time that equates to the newly flooded areas where grass amd other vegatation help filter the dingy water.

A creek channel that wasn't affected by the storm is often a lucky "gold mine" to come across.

currents and temperatures also create a edge
Say where fast water meets slow water.
or where a feeder creak may Cary cooler water or warmer water into a body of water . The thermocline is a good example of a temperature edge.

Very timely, too. A GREAT spot to fish that not many folks will dream of is where I pull up to the buoy line below Blakely Dam, which impounds Lake Ouachita. When they generate, bottom draw water that's in the 40s to lower 50s spears out into a pool of river water that had a chance to warm up. We get fog in mid day sometimes, and the air is a good 20 degrees lower than should be. The draw water carries a few tons of baitfish trapped in the powerful suction. Most are destroyed going through the turbines to produce a fish soup serving, but some pass through swimming.

Right where the fast water is cutting across the pool is an edge where bass watch while suspending in the slower water. Most any bait cast upstream and swam down that shear line will get bit. WILL. Getting the bass into the boat is a whole other story, the current adding a virtual 50 pounds to whatever the fish weighs. For an added bonus in you days' excitement, we have stripers and wipers haunting that spot. Add the current power to their 9-40# weight will leave you hoping the rod will hold up and not snap.

Within 5 minutes the pool water begins to circulate to become a huge eddy current. Where the eddy meets slower pool water away from the new water is yet another edge.

Ah, happy fishing indeed! Lots of snapped lines, lost lures, damaged rods, but FUN in the sun.

Hmm, and what part does the wind play?   Take for example any givin lake shoreline.  High winds during the day or night push the warm water along the shore line out, perhaps to the other side of the lake, pulling the colder water from below into it's place!

two weeks ago I fished a tournament with my wife called Jack and Jill. We fished an area on the lake called the Devel's Punch Bowl over a very large weed bed. The weeds came up to about one foot from the surface. Between the weeds were small channels were the weed edge dropped off from 10 to 18 ft. We used white spinnerbaits along the edge. We started at 6:50 am and had five fish onboard by 7:10 am and started caulling at 7:30 am. A friend of mine was fishing about 100 yards from me and not catching anything. He ask me why my white spinnerbait was working and his wosn't. He was fishing the tops of the weeds and not the edge and I couldn't tell him because I was fidhing aginst him for money. He never figured out the edge tihing as we did. We ended up in 10th place and a nice pay check. Fish the edges it works.

Harry

Trophy Life Member USN Retired 1969-1989 NW Bass Pro Washington State

Here's two more scenarios for edge effect that I take advantage of.

1. Mud lines. Wind making waves or just chop, or boat traffic can cause soil to leach away from the bank/shore to form a band of suspended soil. If the wind is constant towards the bank/shgore the mud line tends to be well defined, clear water beginning only a few feet farther out. Bass hide in the edge of the mudline to ambush fish seen far away in clear water. A buzzbait, spinnerbait, chatterbait or other noisy bait retrieved along the mudline in the clear water often draws out sizable bass. Sometimes it works better to swim it in the muddy water instead, and sometimes a quiet floating worm dangled in the clear side will do the trick. Experiment.

2. Anything in a fishery that for a bass is DIFFERENT attracts them. It's very unlike many other game animals that become alarmed with change. The bass angler's primary key word ought to be simply "different". Bass prefer a break in the boredom of a flat "plain" of nothingness other than water. Even just a single stick can draw attention. I saw a demonstration of this in an aquarium. A felt pen line was drawn on the glass, there being nothing but bass and sand in the water. Within a minute all the bass moved to put their mouth against the line, and that's where they stayed. If there isn't anything in the water, put something there. Just dunking a branch of most any tree or shrub weighed with a rock should do. Then pay more attention to places that have few or maybe just one object for them to relate to.

Jim....thanks for jogging my memory.

I can't remember WHERE I saw this....but I know it exists.

I saw photos of small fish in a 5 gallon bucket of water.

1st pic was with nothing in there...the fish swam around and around.

2nd pic...a metal rod was stuck in straight up and down on an edge . The fish automatically hung right next to that rod.

I can't remember what the other pics were...I hope I can figure out where I saw these.

What's important is that fish...not just bass...relate to both cover AND structure.

And also explains why that ANY body of water with an abundance of either are usually THE most difficult to fish...as there is SO much for the fish to relate to.

And Jim's other comment about "mud lines"...this applies to MANY species of fish...including walleyes, pike, muskie and sunfish. IF you find a line...fish it!

I hear what you are saying but it still begs the question of how the wind impacts this topic...Fish also follow water temps and when the wind blows hard and long it totally disrupts the thermocline (sp), putting fish in a totally different location than where you would expect (or maybe would expect) to find them...Can you guys offer some explination?

Thanks for the remind, Turnip. Wind edges are sort of secret around here.

When most boats are tucked away in protected coves during windy conditions, I love heading across the lake for a chain of small islands. There are many of them close enough together and have high elevations with forest to catch wind from most directions. Where they form a narrow funnel chute water can "pour" through causing excitement among bass and other fish, and of course the wise angler ready to take advantage of that. I find bass during all seasons usually stacked up on the lee side, downwind where wind currents empty into calmer water. They are watching upwind for lunch to arrive.

Water being wind driven past a large pocket in the shoreline or bank is a great place to swim some baits. Bass will wait in the calmer water of the pocket watching whatever might be driven past the mouth of the pocket.

An all night steady wind in those areas will pack green water in traps like downwind pockets and coves. The green is of course plankton. Since the tiny animals and microscopic floating plants they feed on are most active at the surface where the most sunlight is, the "cloud of life" is subject to being driven along by the wind. Shad and shore minnows feast on any plankton they can find, which in turn are eaten by the bass and other predators like crappie. If wind stays for days in one direction the plankton keeps piling up, drawing even more baitfish and predators like stripers that normally stay out in open water here.

Sustained wind can easily affect a thermocline. It can sweep upper layers of upwind water to pile it on top of water on the other side of a lake, making the depth to the previous thermocline deeper than it was downwind, while shallower on the upwind side. When reporting a thermocline depth be sure to say which side of a large body of water. In doing that water transfer there is probably an upper layer of warmer water shearing against the next layer of cooler water below it, yet another edge. The upper layer is usually heavily oxygenated from the turbulence, supporting life even in hot water. Bass sometimes like to stay in the edge of the cooler water looking up for meals in the warmer more active layer.

Jim

It's important to note that Jim's comment about sustained winds in the same direction also attact other predators like walleye, pike and muskie too.

At the same time though...I have seen the leeward (calm) shore of lakes and reservoirs ALSO be productive in these periods. My guess is the wind blows a lot of insects off of vegetation near the shore...and the calmer waters make it easy for small fish to feed....thus also attracting predators. It's also my belief that individual fish will avoid rougher waters...and / or some fish are such homebodies to a particular area that they rarely move far. In-Fisherman has published studies about smallmouths being this way....and I have no doubt that individuals of other species can and do act the same way.

Posted By davesett2000 on 05 Aug 2010 11:41 AM
It's important to note that Jim's comment about sustained winds in the same direction also attact other predators like walleye, pike and muskie too.

At the same time though...I have seen the leeward (calm) shore of lakes and reservoirs ALSO be productive in these periods. My guess is the wind blows a lot of insects off of vegetation near the shore...and the calmer waters make it easy for small fish to feed....thus also attracting predators. It's also my belief that individual fish will avoid rougher waters...and / or some fish are such homebodies to a particular area that they rarely move far. In-Fisherman has published studies about smallmouths being this way....and I have no doubt that individuals of other species can and do act the same way.

good point. If there is a good insect population near shore this can be an excellent place to fish. also in streams for trout in the summer the bank nearest the side that the wind is coming from blows hoppers and beetles  into the water. the big browns go nuts. this is a great time to throw a hopper imitation on either a fly rod or float rig. I look for a current EDGE or seam that segregates the flow and food.

Brian

Good point about rivers Brian.

Pete...large deep bodies of water won't flip just from winds. Shallow ones are the ones most affected, and even so...sooner or later the thermocline WILL set up again in a few days. Since fall turnover is a seasonal change of an edge...that is why fishing is so difficult duing that period.

And why it would be better for us to go back to that topic for discussion about it. JMHO

I've found the pics of what we were talking about earlier! They're in a book published by Cy DeCosse Inc. (no longer in business). The name of the book was "Largemouth Bass", and the primary author was Don Oster...and Dick Sternberg was also part of the project. The book is part of the "Hunting and Fishing Library" that they marketed from the mid '80's to the mid '90's.

Perhaps flipping is the wrong word...Perhaps displaced is the correct word?