DIGGING DITCHES
JOHN COX
“Whenever I catch a fish
up shallow, I’ll always
make another cast back
to the spot, because if
that bass came from a
ditch, you’ll almost
always catch another
one right away.”
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
TODD FAIRCLOTH
“I always tell people that
fish follow the contour of
the bottom. I don’t care if
you’re fishing a giant
grass flat. The grass is
just cover. The fish will
still move through it
following the bottom.”
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Ditches, drains, troughs, depressions
– it doesn’t really matter what you call
them. All that matters is that you under-
stand what they are and their impor-
tance when it comes to finding bass.
“Basically, they’re veins of deeper
water that run into or across a stretch
of shallower water, usually on a point
or a flat,” says MLF Bass Pro Tour pro
Todd Faircloth.
That may sound vague, but, in
essence, describing ditches has to be
vague because of the variety. For
instance, a ditch in Florida might be a
foot deeper than the rest of the sur-
rounding area. In Texas, it could range
from a couple feet to 15 feet deep, par-
ticularly if it’s coming out of deep
water. And, in the Carolinas, Faircloth
has seen ditches in excess of 20 feet
deep through a flat.
How they’re created also differs.
Some ditches are formed by years of
runoff from shore. Others are former
creek beds. In Florida, a ditch can be
created by boats running across a sec-
tion of flat during a period of low water.
Cox even once found a series of ditch-
es in Texas that were created by ATVs
when the lake had experienced a low-
water period.
“You could actually see on the
graph the race track they had created,”
he says.
No matter the depth or how they’re
created, ditches are key because they
serve as highways for bass.
“I always tell people that fish follow
the contour of the bottom,” Faircloth
explains. “I don’t care if you’re fishing a
giant grass flat. The grass is just cover.
The fish will still move through it fol-
lowing the bottom.”
And that right there explains why
ditches are so important. By finding a
ditch, you’ve found a replenishing high-
way that bass will move along to get
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