Have been able to go fishing with a co-worker a couple times so far, in his bass boat. I've noticed that we always seem to be traveling to a area with banks and cover. Never anything very from out from them. Is there not any cover down there? No fish? etc? I've been trying to bank fish Pflugerville and been thinking I need to get out further but am now questioning that thought. Lake Pflugerville has a dam, but when I've fished there, there doesn't seem to be any cover but quite a few fish reports on the dam. ...I've been to Lake Pflugerville over 100 if not 200 times and never caught anything. I keep going back because it's very close.

Thanks,
Swyt

Most game fish relate to some type of structure and for ambush points to feed.
There are usually always fish near and just off the banks because that is where most of the cover and baitfish congregate.
Offshore there is also structure deep such as creek channels and trees, rocks and breaks in depth with hold fish as well.
Most offshore fishing you need electronics to locate those fish holding magnets, but the easiest way to locate active feeding fish is off the banks where there are variations in the surrounding area.
An example would be an old roadbed leading down into the water.
There would be bar ditches on both sides and maybe even an old bridge which would be a perfect fish attractant in deeper water.
This is where your electronics would shine!
Fishing from shore try to vary your depth using bottom techniques and also a slip float set at varying depths until you get a bite and then stick with that depth.
Vary lures if casting and try fishing parallel to the shore and around rocks and stumps.
There is a true saying, and that is "if your aren't getting snagged, you are fishing in the wrong spot!"

Off shore Hop Spots are called Structure. The Structure that will produce off shore is sitting on the best Irregular Contour Lines. This is what I have done for 50 years by studying all the maps available and Nav. Apps. that shows these contour lines from the main channel to the shoreline. All of this is related. The best Shoreline areas hold fish because of the Irregular Contours that deliver the Bass to the shoreline areas. There is lots of dead water between these areas and takes many years of experience mapping to recognize them. Time on the water is the only other alternative. Over 100 trips with no success tells me something is wrong or all your best areas are off shore. It takes me about 30 hours to break down a lake by using my system. I have NOT done any work on Pflugerville for anyone; or I would be glad to share, but that doesn't mean that it cannot be done.

There are times of year and species that will be in the middle of the lake. Usually if you find bait, you can find the fish. It is a complicated issue. Season, temperature, species, weather, bait movement, and availability of habitat can all influence where fish are found. Many people just concentrate on largemouth bass, and can miss out on other opportunities a lake has to offer.

do I get a remittance?

when bank fishing I try to find a point or somewhere I can wade out a bit and parallel the bank best I can.
jig n craw, spinners, worms all seem to be the best then.

No

I've caught a few fish wading in Pflugerville, particularly around the dam, but there's a lot of shallow area around the shoreline (which makes it popular with kiteboarders in the winter). In the summer, the hydrilla completely chokes the lake out to about fifty yards. Bank fishing will be difficult to impossible then. If you have a kayak tho, you can do ok fishing the edges of the hydrilla, or some of the holes in the mat. I wouldn't expect many bass over 14" tho.

Be careful, there's been a fatality in recent years. It is an unusually windy lake for one of such small size, and if you fall in without a life jacket the hydrilla can wrap around your limbs and make swimming difficult. I've experienced this myself in Lake Pflugerville and it's no joke.

Everyone on the banks cast as far as they can into deeper water, everyone in boats cast as close as they can to the shore line.....

Good one!

Where ever you have grass beds, drop offs, structure, brush piles, and ledges, you will have fish.


Side Note: Also add Lilly Pads.

I've caught a lot of fish through the years trolling open water. Lakes amenable to trolling have some features in common:
1. Clear water.
2. Dominant bait species that school in open water.

Species I've caught trolling open water near the middle - spotted bass, striped bass, walleye, rainbow trout, cutthroat trout, kokanee salmon, northern pike, chain pickerel, musky, yellow perch, channel catfish, common carp, white bass, crappie. Species I have not caught trolling - largemouth bass, flathead catfish.

In some lakes, trolling can be effective throughout the season. In other lakes, it's more of a mid-summer phenomenon when the thermocline has pushed either most of the bait or most of the predator species into deeper water.

I think it is important to specify species when asking about fish. Most of my fishing is crappie , hybrids and sandbass. Most of the year , I catch
most of my fish away from the shoreline.

Mo

It depends. I always hated fishing in lakes growing up before electronic fish finders. You never knew if there were any fish where you were fishing. I think a lot of bass fishermen do not use their electrons much, as they just "beat the bank" with lures. Sometimes big LM bass are shallow but not always. At PK, I find that most of them hang out under deep shady docks until night when they come out to feed. I never target LM Bass specifically but catch a lot of them fishing for crappie under docks. In clear lakes, shade trumps cover. A dock with both is golden and only electronics will tell you if it's the spot.


This fish was caught in 50 feet.

Don Harper wrote 30 plus great articles last year with the subject line starting with "Article" under Bass Fishing. I highly recommend you find them and read them and then read them again. He goes into detail each type of structure and how you would approach fishing them. If you take the time to read and understand, what he wrote will lay a good foundation.

There's alot going on under the surface of the water. Here's a contour map of Fayette County as an example, Pflugerville doesn't have a survey. Darker blue indicates shallower water, white deeper water. Each line represents a change of depth of 5 feet.




Middle of the lake can mean you're sitting in 15 feet of water beneath the boat or 90 feet if you're hovered over the river channel. This brings up the thermocline and dissolved oxygen. Cold water under the thermocline holds less dissolved oxygen. That combination makes LMB lethargic and less conducive to catch. This is seasonal by the way and when a lake "turns over" the fishing can really tough. As you gain more experience, hopefully you'll understand what factors would drive you to deeper water.