Brad with @Shield Outdoors shares his favorite techniques to attack a dock for fall bass fishing. In this video, we will look at WHY bass are moving under docks and what lures you can use to fill the boat during the fall transition.

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Video Transcript:

Brad Garrison:
What is up Monsterbass fam? I'm Brad with Shield Outdoors. I'm a new face that you're going to see right here on the Monsterbass channel from time to time, but that's already enough about me. We have three things we need to talk about, bass, the fall and dock fishing. So let's get into it.

Brad Garrison:
It's late September, early October, the fall transition is either about to occur or is already occurring wherever you are fishing, and one of the fastest ways to get fish in the boat is by targeting docks. I'm going to break this down into three sections so you can develop a plan for your next trip and execute that plan with calculated precision. We're going to look at why we fish dock so much and more importantly, why best choose to be under those docks. Second, we're going to look at the elements of dock fishing. And third, I'm going to give you my lures, my favorite choices for fishing docks in the fall.

Brad Garrison:
Before we even get started, drop down in the comments, comment your favorite dock fishing lure for the fall before I even have to say, you know I'm probably even going to say it. Just drop it below, whatever your favorite lure is, and make sure you subscribe right here on the Monsterbass channel. And then you can head on over to Shield Outdoors, check out some of my videos and you can subscribe to us over there. But for right now, we got some stuff to handle. Let's get into this.

Brad Garrison:
For humans, we fish docks because they're everywhere. They're easily accessible. You can fish a dock from a boat, from a kayak, from the shore and even from the dock. You can drop straight down on the bass, depending on what kind of situation you have. And for a large majority of fishermen, you may not have electronics or sonar, so choosing to target a dock is one of your only options.

Brad Garrison:
Now, why do the bass choose to be underneath the dock during the fall? Primarily, shade. Shade is probably one of the biggest things for a fish in the fall transition because you might still be experiencing some hot days and might still have some hot water. So a dock, especially the bigger the dock is going to provide shade, that's going to provide a little bit of cooler water which is going to have a little bit more oxygen in it. So that's going to attract a little bit more bait fish, and that's also going to track a little bit more bass. Now, the other thing a dock is going to do, it's going to give vegetation a place to live because of the shade and it's also undisturbed, right? Boats ain't driving over it. You're not disturbing it. So a dock is going to provide shade and vegetation.

Brad Garrison:
And then the other thing it provides is protection for the bait fish and for the bass, from birds, from humans, from whatever it might be. So you got shade, you got vegetation and you got protection. Also, when it's super muddy, if you have poles going down into the water like this one, we see right here behind us, right here, a fish is able to relate to that. So when it's muddy and they can't see, they will hug right up against that. So all of those things combined, shade, structure, and vegetation, it gives the bass the idea that they have the perfect ambush position, and that's what we want to exploit. We want to put our lure right where they expect bait to be, and that's how we're going to catch them.

Brad Garrison:
So what are some of the key elements of fishing docks? When you're rolling up on a dock, have some kind of a systematic strategy of how you're going to attack that dock. So you're either going to fish from the front to the back, the back to the front, from side to side, maybe you're going to target the poles, just have some kind of a plan. You might even say, "I'm going to hit the shallow part of the dock. I'm going to hit the deep into the dock." Like today, we're going to be targeting shallows, but we're also going to be looking at about eight to 10 foot if we can find it.

Brad Garrison:
So just have a strategy and systematically pick apart that dock. Find the fish that other people are not catching. Target the bass that have not been caught. Somebody has left the bass on to that dock, you need to find it and you need to catch it. So a specific strategy would be, like a lot of times, I will nose right up to the shore and I will cast parallel with the shore and I'll start right on the shoreline. And then I'll cast about two foot out and then four foot out and six foot out, and not only am I finding how far out are the fish from shore, I'm also going to figure out what is my strike zone, how deep are these fish? So that's just like an example of a strategy.

Brad Garrison:
And then the other thing is once you catch one, get right back in there. During the fall, these fish might be very schooled up or they might be hitting a certain school of bait fish. So if you catch one, assume there's a second. If you catch two, assume there's a third. Yesterday, I caught six little pickles, all at the same dock, but it's just an example of, they were all tight, they were packed in there and they were all underneath the same dock. So keep casting into those spots until you don't catch fish.

Brad Garrison:
So if you don't have graphs, what I want you to do is look at the shoreline. The shoreline will help you determine what the slope of the ground might be under the water. So like here, we have a very steep hillside, and it's dropped steep into the water right here. We have a deep creek channel, right in the middle of this little cove. Another thing that you can do looking at the shoreline is see how close are these trees to the shoreline? How much debris might I have in the water? Also, if you don't have a graph, look for poles like I was talking about here. So this is a floating dock, but they have poles that keep it centered, right? So look for those kinds of poles, look for boats that are on lifts because the lifts are on poles. Look for ladders hanging into the water.

Brad Garrison:
And also, look at this dock right here. Look how nasty it is. There's bird poop all over it. This is an undisturbed dock. They never come down and get on their boat. It's very clear to see they don't use this boat very often. So the fish probably feel very safe under here. They probably don't get spooked out from underneath this dock a lot.

Brad Garrison:
Now, if you do have graphs, watch your graph. Because what do people do on their docks? All kinds of stuff. There's accidental things that happen that creates structure for bass, tables, chairs. People knock stuff off the edge of the dock. It goes down, they never retrieve it, and it becomes excellent structure just as an accident. But you can explore it that with your graphs and with your sonar. Also, a lot of people throw their Christmas trees in. A lot of people are like recreational fishermen, they think, "Oh, I'll throw this Christmas tree in," and then they never even fish it, or maybe other fishermen don't know it's there. So if you do have graphs, make sure you watch the end of the docks and look for tables, chairs, ladders, anything that might fall in the water or be thrown in the water that creates fish structure.

Brad Garrison:
And as with any strategy, make mental notes of where you're catching the fish, how you're catching them, what's working and remember that as you go through the rest of this fall. And then if you have to write it down, write it down, track your information so next year, you know exactly what will work when you roll up on these docks again.

Brad Garrison:
So most importantly, what kind of lures am I going to throw around a dock? 2020 has been the year of the drop shot for me, and you know what? It is now my favorite dock lure. One, I could fish at whatever pace I want. I can go quick. I can go fast. I can let it sit there forever or I can kind of power fish through a dock. I can also be very accurate with a drop shot. So if I wanted to snake in between this dock and the poles of the lift, I can flip right in there with a drop shot and it can sit there. It'll sit there for five minutes if I want it to. And I can let us sit in the strike zone, I can wait for the hit, whatever I need to do.

Brad Garrison:
If a fish is going to relate to that pole, they might be right on it. With a drop shot, I can flip to that pole and give it some extra line, and that lure is going to go straight down. The worm's going to be right in front of their face. Instead of where a lot of lures you cast out, and as you start to retrieve it, there is a curve. It doesn't go straight down, right? So I do like that drop shot. I can pitch it in to a certain area and it goes straight down to exactly where I want it to be.

Brad Garrison:
So my favorite drop shots V&M and Strike King. I'm going to use that Dream Shot or I'm going to use the V&M, the straight worms. I think it's a five and a half or a six inch worm. And for the fall transition under docks, I'm definitely going to be using shad colors. So anywhere from white, gray, translucent colors, maybe black, maybe a little bit of blue, those are the colors I'm going to focus on in a drop shot. Second lure I'm going to use is a chatterbait, a bladed jig. Everybody loves them. You get into little pockets like this, and you'll have a little bit more vegetation, completely just burn that chatterbait right across that vegetation. It's a commotion driven lure. That lure is making a lot of noise, and the fish just want to smack it. So I might would throw chad colors. I'm going to throw grays. I'm going to throw whites, blacks.

Brad Garrison:
So a chatter bait, bladed jig. And if that's too much commotion, I'm going to a swimbait or even better, an underspin. Yesterday, the underspin was tearing it up for us. We were doing exactly what I was talking about earlier. I was nosing into the shore and casting parallel to the shore, and I was pulling that underspin, which you'll find in the September Monsterbass box. You'll find some underspins. I was pulling them straight down the shoreline, very simple technique, very easy to do. Again, like we were talking about earlier with trees and with brush that might be falling in the water, if you get into something real nasty, thick grass or brush, I'm going to have some kind of a flipping rig, the 13 Fishing Ninja Craw with the tails, chartreuse dipped. Whew. Oh yeah. I might even peg the weight depending on how thick the vegetation is and what the situation calls for, but I'm going to have a punching rig, something very weedless, something that I can still drop in vertically and not get hung up like the drop shot or the chatterbait might get hung up.

Brad Garrison:
And of course, everybody loves topwater. I'm definitely going to have topwater choices for the fall transition. When these bass start coming in, there is just a multitude of options for topwater. You can throw the Basshik popper that came in your August Monsterbass box. You can throw buzzbaits. You can throw frogs. Oh, man. I mean the frog options are absolutely endless. You could throw the Lunkerhunt Yappa Rat and the little one that looks like a roach, anything like that is going to get you bites.

Brad Garrison:
Ladies and gentlemen, that is fall dock fishing in a nutshell. Now, if I missed anything, if I missed your favorite technique strategy or lure, just comment below. Let's all learn from each other, let's help each other out. You're going to see me here on the channel giving my tips and techniques from time to time. So make sure you're subscribed right here on the Monsterbass channel. If you're feeling so kind, you can go over to Shield Outdoors, it'll be linked below, and you can check out some of my videos, subscribe to me over there, like, comment, all that good stuff. Show me some love in the comments. You know I'm going to try to respond to every single person and yes, that's a challenge. Thank you so much for being here. Check out some of Monsterbass' other informational videos. Peace.