It's shade, it's shelter, it’s ambush feeding — it just happens to be deeper than most folks can dive with a single breath of air. We’re talking about standing timber and, specifically, the treetops in which we often find loads of bass just hoping those shad make a mistake.
“The best times of year for this seems to be during the extreme periods, meaning the coldest and hottest temperatures of the season,” says Brandon Palaniuk, the 2017and 2022 Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series Angler of the Year. “I prefer sunny conditions with a slight breeze. This allows for light penetration to position the fish into the treetops and make them easier to target.”
Pro angler Brent Ehrler of California says he finds fish using the treetops as prespawn staging areas — lounges, if you will, outside the maternity ward. In the fall, he looks for schooling activity over the timber, as fish stake out convenient spots from which to launch their flurried assaults. “They’ll sit in the tops of those trees and they wait for shad to swim by,” Ehrler said. “You’ll see them schooling, but you may not realize they’re actually living not far below those trees.”
Palaniuk describes his top time in the treetops: “I made a Bassmaster Elite Top 12 in 2014 at Table Rock Lake. Part of my game plan in that event consisted of catching suspended fish in treetops in 20 to 30 feet of water with trees coming within 10 feet of the surface, where I caught them on a suspending jerkbait.”
