Panfish often bed as a school - this increases survival of the young by sheer numbers. Bass do not generally cluster in schools to spawn (that I have ever seen or heard of), but there may be numerous beds in the same area due to highly favorable conditions. A spawning pair of bass doesn't like anyone else around (bass included) when they spawn as fry are food.

I'm not sure the age of the lake. It is well established. We did stock tilapia about four years ago but surely they have all died off by now. They die when the water temp cools. There is a massive bream population but I could totally see it being marks from a compactor. It being in 20+ feet makes me wonder.

This is near all the other beds I posted above, but only the small depression and the creek channel had a suitable soil for bedding:

Shellcrackers on beds:

The water at that spot wasn't always 20' deep. Remember, that spot probably started out so shallow it was dry! And, it could have happened during any subsequent drought when much shallower as well.

Ok I would like everyone to weigh in again. Matt posted this for me while I was in East Tx and didn't have access to wifi. This little lake is over 30 years old. It is spring fed. It is 8.5 acres. These bed looking depressions are consistent in the lower 1/3 of the lake and all in over 15' of water. We have several feeders on the lake. It has been stocked with channel cats, Florida bass and copper nose blue gills several times. It had tilapia in it one year about five years ago but of course they died off after that winter. It has a healthy shad population. It has lots of timber and a very small crappie population.

After reading all of that what in the world are these beds in 15'+ of water?

I'm starting to think the tilapia four years ago may be the answer. I have never been able to see the bottom until I just added an LSS2 module to my mini pontoon for my Lowrance HDS 10. I learned more in 2 hours than I have figured out in 14 years of fishing this 8.5 acre lake.

Thanks for posting this and the discussion. I have seen this type of depression before, and never thought twice about it. For some reason my mind went to alluvial fans or some other water phenom. But I will take a second look from now on, and break out some casts at these formations!

It looks like a sheep foot roller compactor to me. used to compact dirt in the construction process.

I have a camera you can borrow. You can get 2-3' of visibility out of it. It would show you what's there

I am no expert and offered an honest opinion.