Briank. The answer to your question about one presentation working all the time is no. I use Many diferent presentations a day, or week, or month. Usually its not necesarrily one bait that catches all the fish everytime out, but you have to experiment with different baits and presentations to catch fish each time out. Some days i’ll see fish busting shad every where i go with wood and current for example. I’ll start throwing topwaters to the bass that are near the surface and before you know it, i’m on fish. I take a mental note of the area i just caught a bunch on and move to a similar area. If this area produces more fish, i’m licking my chops because i know i’m going to whack ’em at every spot i check. But it doesn’t always work this smoothly. some days they are definitely in slop, somedays, they are definitely on rock. You just have to try everything. I usually start out on a fishing day fishing a spot where i caught fish last time out. I’ll hit that and hope to catch some fish. If not, i’ll try some more similar spots to that to just see if that spot isn’t holding or if that pattern isn’t producing. If i find that fish aren’t in grass for example, i start looking at the other possible patterns such as wood, rock, islands, ect and go through in my head of every possible scenario where fish could be. Some times, it just doesn’t work out and i don’t get any fish. Sometimes, after fishing slop, grass, and rock, i finally pull up on wood and that turns out to be holding fish and it saves the day. Sometimes i’m just thrown into a lull and i don’t know what happened. Each time out you have to experiment is what i’m getting at. Yeah i could tell you the prefered patterns and lure choices for me right now, but your best bet is to try everything you can think of until you have a combination put together that consistantly boats fish. don’t focus on one lure either. Fish each spot with a combination of lures. I’ll start on a spot with a topwater if i think fish are on top, then maybe a swim jig. then a rattle trap. Usually i can get some fish on the first couple techniques, then i’ll work everything extremely well with plastics. This way you know for sure THERE ARE NO FISH HERE! or THERE IS A PILE OF FISH HERE!
As i said before though, i can tell you favorite presentations/baits for now.
The lures that are on my rods right now would be:
1- Swim jig. (always have one tied on)
2- super spook jr. (have had one on for last couple outings as bass are starting to school and feed on shad on top)
3- texas rigged creature. (whether its a brush hog or lake fork creature, or something else, i have confidence in 4 inch creature baits pitched around cover)
4- rattle trap. (I believe this is the ultimate best choice for when bass are schooling and eating shad, but below the surface, a few feet down. Not right on top.)
Thats pretty much my favorites for right now. Spots that i fish vary, but i like fishing eelgrass with current using swim jigs with some flash to immitate the shad, grass clumps out in the open with current flow with swim jigs spinnerbaits and rattletraps if there is no eel grass and just arrowheads.
I have a few “nothing spots” also where there are just a few logs and a mud bottom but there are shad. In these areas i throw everything mentioned above. None of the baits above are favored over another. They all have been extremely effective for me.
if you are motoring through and area and see bass and shad busting, stop and fish. thats been a good way for me to find fish. Otherwise, stick to grass with current flow. Also main channel wingdams have been good but not my cup of tea. when i do fish those, i use crankbaits followed by plastic craws to catch smallies. I have tried topwaters as i have seen fish busting over the dams but didn’t have any luck. Hope this LONG post helps you Briank. Someday i’ll get up there to fish cats with ya. I don’t know when or how though. Football has me pretty much spent every day of the summer now except sundays. I know we’ll fish someday though. Maybe an ice GTG is in order down here in LAX this winter. 
) and fished from Monticello to Otsego. A stiff wind blowing upstream and really low water didn’t let me fish as much as I would have wanted, though. We started off about 9:30 and I quickly picked up the largest fish of the day on a tube. Steph held off until later in the day and spanked me in the numbers contest, though, all on a white grub with a black jighead. All of the fish were caught in fairly calm water with large boulders near current.
