how long are you keeping It in the water?

For example: You pitch to your spot on a laydown. Do you let It sink, twitch a few times, and pull It out/re-pitch? Or are you dragging/reeling It back to the boat? Or do you twitch It one spot for a while?

What do you do?

Depends. Sometimes you are trying to get them to eat it on the fall. If the bite sucks, you may need to drag it a little.

Depends on season and water temps. Warm water pitch, twitch, repeat. Cold water, let it soak for longer then you can stand then repeat.

Let the bass tell you how they want it. Sometimes the kill it on the fall. Sometimes you gotta shake it on the bottom. Sometimes they like it fast. Sometime they like it slow. They will change sometimes from one day to the next. Generally for me most come either on the fall on on the first or second hop. Sometimes they want a 1/8oz weight sometimes they want 5/8oz. Sometimes they want dipped tail. Sometimes they want garlic scent. Sometimes they want a big creature bait. Sometimes they want a little speed craw. Don't get locked in to yesterday but fish the moment.

And this is why bass fishing is stupid

Some call it a challenge.

And yet here you are.

Once upon a time:
Back in the days of the Bassin America circuit, I was fishing a national championship on Lake Seminole (Georgia / Florida line).
In September, hydrilla is matted up out in 10' to 14' of water.
One of the "hot baits" was a 1oz punching weight with skirt and trailer plastic on the hook.
Even with the 1oz bullet weight, the bait often had to be pitched several feet into the air to get it to punch through the thick stuff.
This meant that guys didnt get "in contact" with the bait until it was several feet below the mat.
In addition, most would then free spool the bait to the bottom. A 1oz bullet weight gets to the bottom in 12' of water pretty darn fast.
They'd give the bait a bounce or two on the bottom and zip it right back out of the water almost as fast as it went down. On to the next pitch.

Funny thing was, until about 10:00am or so, most (all?) of the feeding fish were in the first two feet!
(Matted hydrilla gets a lot of little critters in the "mat". These attract blue gill, etc. and attract the bass. But you already knew this.)
By working the bait through the mat and then "fishing it" in the prime top 3', I got a lot more bites than my competitors.
In addition, I was able to make a a lot more pitches by not having to let out 10' of line and then reeling it back up every time. (efficiency)
Sequence went - penetrate the mat, bump the bait against the underside of the mat a time or two, let it fall a foot, bounce it again, let if fall a foot . . .

After three days, came in third out of 728 anglers. Nice check.

Moral of the story . . . dont just do the normal, conventional thing. Think about where the active, feeding fish are going to be and target your approach.

Flipping shallow (3' or less) buck brush of willows, i probably dont soak the bait more than 5 to10 seconds, bouncing it several times.
I will flip / pitch the same buck bush four or five times, covering all sides,
I'm confident that if one's in there, I'll get the immediate reaction bite on one of those flips.

In deeper weeds (hydrilla, millfoil, etc.), I try and be a bit more patient. Main reason is I ALWAYS use a rattle in those situations.
Not some wimpy little rattle, a REAL rattle. Not uncommon to get bit after 30 seconds or more of bouncing.
I think its pretty common for weed bed fish not to see the baits initial entry. They do hear that rattle though.

If fish are tight to specific targets (stump, buck bush, tree trunk, etc.) your gonna throw right to that target for a reaction bite. Dont get it, move on.
If fish are roaming around (grass beds, gravel humps,etc.) where your not targeting a small spot, get the bait in there and give them enough time to find it.

Good info. Thank you littledog.

Well then, go play golf instead.

All of the above

I work high percentage spots with multiple retrieves in a small area to determine what the fish want. For example, if I have a high percentage area say the size of a basketball court, I will try to find 7-10 high percentage spots within that specific area. I will make 2 -3 loops in that area working the specific spots with different retrieves/presentations. Once I am able to dial in on what they want I begin to look for more areas and speed up my travels covering more water with a specific set of presentations each to eliminate what they are not wanting to eat. It starts slow for me but once I get a feel for it I can cover more water. I will experiment a little bit as the sun gets higher because that will impact the presentation they want. Its definitely a moving target but eliminating what they dont want seems quicker to do than finding out exactly what they do want..... got to also keep in mind that you can you get the false info from the closing of a feeding window. You might be on exactly what they want but they just are not eating..... Its a wonderful puzzle I love trying to solve. All of this is cut in half if you fish with a partner and yall agree to different presentations until you figure it out.

When flipping/pitching I feel like the more trees/bushes/cover I put my bait in, the more fish I will catch.

You may be able to catch a couple slowly dragging it back to the boat, but I feel more times than not, I will catch more fish by putting my lures in more bushes.