No angler has ever pulled up alongside a pine tree laying in the water thinking he has just unlocked a winning bass pattern. In fact, fishing pine trees might even be considered just a little bit taboo.
“I’ve always heard you can’t catch fish off a pine tree because fish just don’t get on them,” Covington’s Jason Pittman said. “Supposedly, pine trees have too much sap or something like that.”
Almost as if he were ashamed to admit it, Pittman told me under his breath that he has caught fish off pine trees before. And he feels they are perfect examples of how getting far off the bank can help anglers catch more fish.
“Take those canals off the Pearl River system,” he said. “There’s hardly anything but pine trees on those banks, and some of them will eventually fall over into the water. But in Louisiana, we’ve got these 80-foot pine trees that are 60 feet of small, round trunk and only 20 feet of bushy limbs.”
And Pittman has discovered that if a fallen pine tree is the only piece of cover within a half mile, as they sometimes are in the Pearl River canal system, bass will use them just like they would any other kind of tree.
“You’ve got to back off a good ways to get to where the limbs are,” Pittman said. “In fact, you may not find the limbs until you get out in 10 feet of water or more.
“Just keep fishing down the line of the trunk until you find the top with your baits, and then slow down and work it over.”
Pine trees might not be preferred cover, but bass will definitely use them if they have no other options.
It’s kind of like deer hunting: Deer might not prefer to live in a pine plantation, but if that’s what’s available to them, then they’re going to make the most of what they have.
