RIP-RAP...Overlooked Bass Cover?

This discussion from Rich Zaleski covers one of my favorite areas of focus when fishing...rip-rap. In fact, I tend to prioritize on a quad of features when the game is casting for fish:

Wind 

Wood

Weeds 

Rocks

These provide both visual casting reference, and they hold fish fairly consistently...if well-chosen.

 That means:

A. Being adjacent to the deepest water in an area. 

B. Preference for sharp depth changes from deeper water to shallow.

But, truth be told, I will go for rocks first, if they're available. And if water is being pushed into, or along them, I'm there. 

Find the rocks, find me.

🎣🎣🎣🎣

By Rich Zaleski

Fishing Facts, OCT 1983, excerpt

Keys To Successfully Fishing Rip-Rap

(refer to drawings above)

SHALLOW RIP-RAP

- Other forms of cover (timber, brush, weeds) mixed with or adjacent to rip-rap.

- Inside weedline facing rip-rap bank.

- New rip-rap added to existing rip-rap bank (indicates an area that had eroded, which is often a clue to existence of current irregularity).

- Culverts or pipes extending through rip-rap causeway (may be totally submerged).

- Depth change along otherwise uniform rip-rap bank.

- End or "tailing end" of rip-rap stretch.

DEEP RIP-RAP

- Rip-rap reaching all the way to submerged river channel.

- Turns or other irregularities in rip-rap bank.

- Submerged roadbeds bordering base of rip-rap.

- "Hidden" rip-rap along deep edge of submerged roadbed or around base of otherwise smooth concrete bridge abutments.

GENERAL

- Current flow, or moving water, abutting rip-rap. Wind-pushed water, for example.

- Randomly sized and shaped rocks with large nooks and crannies between them.

- Foreign objects (rip-rap often borders roads and, unfortunately, this sometimes makes them ideal, illicit dumping grounds for discarded appliances, autos, etc. This practice is abhorrent, but such items do often provide breaks at which fish take up residence.

NOTE: Any stretch of rip-rap may hold some fish, but some are more productive than others. 

Items such as those in the chart above add to the attractiveness of a particular rip-rap stretch. 

In checking out an area, extra effort should be devoted to these and similar situations. Stretches without such irregularities should be fished much faster in an effort to pick off a straggler or two. Areas within a rip-rap stretch that contain breaks as described above, are more likely to be holding or contact spots which deserve more effort.

Thanks to Brian at the Facebook group, "The Structure Cafe," for the article excerpt.