I understand the importance of fishing the right depth. Say you believe the bass are stacked up in the water column somewhere between the bottom and the surface. How do you keep your bait in that area for different baits? Thanks.

Drop shots, vertical jigging, spoons, and crank baits if you can reach the depth you need.

With crank baits, do you just control the depth by how fast you retrieve? I guess it is trial and error. also with soft plastics T rigged, it seems like the sinkers would just take it to the bottom. You could use without weight but it might be too buoyant to get down at all.

Different cranks for different depths.

If you want a soft plastic to stay at a certain depth, you can drop shot it with the leader lenght you like, or c-rig it with the lenght and a floating soft plastic.

This works well for me at Amistad. Bass stack up against the vertical walls at several different depths. I like to fish vertical over them staying as close to the wall as possible.

Rig: 12 lb. test flora., 1 oz. bullet pegged, 4.0 wide gap, and a brush hog.

When fishing reports state that the fish are holding around say 10 ft, I guess that means they are near the bottom in 10 feet of water. If it says they are stacking I guess that means they are up off the bottom somewhere between the bottom and the surface. Should I be able to see them and identify their depth with my Lorance 5 DSI?

Yes you will be able to see the difference on that unit. Stacked is also used as suspended fish. If the water is deep enough say 100 ft. and there is a vertical wall extending out into the lake you will find them at several different depths stacked. It depends on the conture of the wall which would be a ledge, sharp jag sticking out off the wall, a knotch in the wall and sometimes the wall just has a saddle in it that will allow them to move up on the wall and stay at the same depth. I perfer the saddles because these fish will normaly stay connected to the bottom, say in 40 to 50 ft. and there will be lots of them.