There aren’t too many fishing publications or fishing shows where you don’t hear the words structure being used a lot.

You can bet if you find the structure in a body of water, you’re going to find the fish.

What exactly is structure? My definition of structure would be any difference or change that appears on the bottom. At times it might be large and at others it’s minuscule.

No matter what size or type of structure you find on a given body of water, you can bet that some aquatic life exists in the area.

So know we know the fish you’re hoping to might be relating to some structure in the lake, all you need to do is to locate the right piece of structure.

This change in the bottom contour can attract many different types of aquatic creatures.

To put it into above water terms; lets pretend an open pasture is your body of water with a large tree in the middle and a small clump of plum brush in the corner.

If a deer or coyote enters the field, the first thing they’re going to see is these two changes or features in the field and they’ll be drawn to it.

These changes if they were under water would be called structure.

The change doesn’t need to be huge, as I’ve caught walleyes relating to a slight depression on the bottom or areas where the bottom content changes from a soft mud bottom to one with hard gravel.

It could be a weedbed, rock pile, humps, points or the old river channel, submerged timber. I just t doesn’t have to be a drastic change; it just needs to be something different.

How do fish relate to structure?

There have been studies made on that show us how fish relate to structure and how much is needed in order for the fish to be attracted to one particular area.

In one study, Largemouth Bass where put into a round metal stock tank with no structure, giving the fish nothing to relate to so they were scattered all over the tank.

When rocks where places in the middle of the tank, all of the fish moved onto the rock pile.

The last part of this test really puts it into perspective. When a black circle was painted on the bottom of the tank the bass went right to the circle, so you see even the slightest change in the bottom configuration or structure can and does attract fish.

What draws these fish to these areas is simple; structure gives the fish everything they need.

Food Source

Aquatic creatures are attracted to these areas looking as this is where there food source is. Structure is attractive to all aquatic creatures, from the smallest microorganisms to the minnows and baitfish as well as the larger game fish, as they will all be relating to or using the structure on the bottom.

Structure is where the aquatic food chain begins and ends in some instances.

Security

These areas also offer security, giving the aquatic insects, minnows, fry, crawdads and other creatures a place to hide and hopefully to keep from being eaten.

Comfortable Water temps

Some types of structure, for instance; weed beds and submerged timber give fish a place to get out of the sun and in he case of the weedbeds, more oxygenated water during hot weather.

In the past, I’ve found walleyes lying in shallow muddied water during the heat of the day next to the only structure on that stretch of the river. It was a 4” deep depression running from the shore out into the deeper water. This foot wide trench was created when a heavy rains washed off the adjacent road.

The shiners had followed the zooplankton into the shoreline and were hiding from the game fish. When one made the mistake of poking his head out of the trench, a walleye was there to make sure that it didn’t get a chance to make that mistake again.

We ran into a similar situation on a recent trip to the Webster, SD area as the only real structure in the lake that we could find were submerged trees, not exactly what most people would consider prime walleye structure.

Well, there were several factures that made this ideal walleye habitat or structure.

The 25 MPH wind that was blowing into the trees had blown zooplankton into the shoreline, bringing the baitfish into the area.

The wind blowing into the shoreline where the submerged trees were standing had created a “magnum” mud line.

These mud lines are created when waves crash into the shoreline. As they move back away from the shore, they carry sediment out into the water.

This muddied water gives the light sensitive walleyes the opportunity to move shallow into the flooded trees which now has became ideal structure attracting not only walleyes, but all species of predator fish.

On this trip, we tried several different methods to fish this area with the heavier Cabela’s Firetiger colored lipless crankbaits being cast up into the trees working best.

One thing that some anglers do is to think that only one particular structure is holding all the fish in the lake and that area is the only place where the fish are biting.

When in fact that there are probably dozens of other areas on the lake areas where the same scenario is being played out.

If you find some type of structure that is holding fish but you don’t want to fight the crowds. Take the information that you’ve learned from that area and search for other structures that are similar as you can bet that once you locate a similar area, there will be fish biting there also.

If the crowd is trolling crankbaits along a muddied up rocky shoreline with a 56 degree surface temperature and rocks that extend from the shore line out into 5 to 6’ foot of water, you should be able to take this information and head to another area with similar structure to see if you can find your own hot spot.

Not all structure in the lake will hold fish at the same time, but unless something changes drastically, every year when conditions are about the same, you’ll be able to catch fish over certain types of structure.

It’s not rocket science, it all has to do with the wind, water temps and water clarity.

On calm sunny days, in a clear water lake all aquatic life will relate to deeper structure to avoid the direct sunlight.

Of course the exception to this is if the wind is blowing hard as you’ll want to fish the structure on the windy side as the food chain will bee forced to follow their food and the mud line created allows the predator fish to move shallow to feed.

If you’re fishing dirty or turbid water, you may be able to fish the shallow structure throughout the day until shallow water temperatures become too hot.

Don’t overlook even the slightest piece of structure as a small change in the bottom contour can hold some truly big surprises.