Hiya folks,

So many people are confused about the difference between structure and cover. Here’s the key: Structure is anything relating to the bottom. A shoal on the bottom coming way up or a drop-off. That’s structure.

But I hear so many folks saying, “Y’know, I was fishing around a weed bed…” and they call a weed bed structure. Well, a weed bed isn’t structure. A weed bed is cover. A dock on the shoreline, that’s cover. A fallen tree on the shore or underwater submerged stumps. Those are cover.

Now, here’s the key: You always want to look for structure, but the best structure usually also has cover over top of it. So if you find that underwater point or that shoal and it’s got a dock sitting over it, you’ve got structure and you’ve got structure with cover—that’s the best of all possible worlds when you’re going fishing.

Happy Fish’n,Gord “The Doc” Pyzer