Shortly after the 2007 season ended for professional anglers of the Bassmaster Elite and FLW Tours, I sat with Rick Clunn, Brian Snowden, Edwin Evers, Tim Horton, and Tommy Martin at Table Rock Lake in Missouri. As we chatted and reminisced about the tournament world, the pros focused on major changes in tournament strategies.

From the perspectives of Clunn and Martin, who’ve plied the tournament trail since the early 1970s, the most important change involves the new GPS chartplotter systems, which integrate electronic maps with GPS data. Martin, who has fished and guided on Toledo Bend Reservoir on the Texas-Louisiana border for four decades, says that, to his dismay, his best spots have become community holes, thanks to these newfangled devices.

Clunn agreed and added that one solution was to place brushpiles to create new hotspots in areas where other anglers would not be quick to find them. From our vantage point at Table Rock, I reminded them that much of the art and science of brushpiling has been honed on the hard-fished waters of the Ozarks.

Brushpile Beginnings

When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers impounded Table Rock Lake in 1958, it flooded the trees on the banks of the White River and its tributaries. To this day, the remains of many flooded trees are evident across the reservoir’s 43,500 acres and 800 miles of shoreline.

Because so many flooded cedars and hardwoods adorn Table Rock’s topography, the notion of adding manmade brushpiles might strike as odd the legions of anglers and guides who regularly fish this reservoir. But legendary guide and early pro angler Charlie Campbell of Forsyth, Missouri, claims he and other guides and anglers began building brushpiles straightaway. “In the early years, we built piles in shallow bays and along shorelines,” Campbell recalls, “primarily so we could find them again. Moreover, beating the bank with spinnerbaits, worms, and crankbaits was the norm, with just a few pioneers probing offshore structure in those days.”

In the late 1970s, Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris, with the assistance of Campbell, instituted an annual midwinter event. Local bass clubs adopted portions of Table Rock and constructed shallow brushpiles from Christmas trees that Bass Pro Shops collected and delivered to the lake. Situated near Springfield and Branson, Missouri, Table Rock’s shoreline soon was developed by exurbanites and vacationers. Along with residential and vacation homes came boat docks, and owners began placing brushpiles in boat slips and at the corners and sides of docks.

Brushpiling Today

During the past 25 years, fishing pressure on Table Rock’s largemouth and spotted bass populations has intensified dramatically. Obvious piles, lying in shallow water and around docks, are constantly bombarded by anglers, making them low-percentage producers.

Coupled with the increased fishing pressure, the crystalline water clarity in lower portions of reservoir cause a large portion of Table Rock’s bass to occupy deepwater locales far off the bank for most of the year. These offshore bass exhibit a pelagic nature, moving significant distances to feed on schools of threadfin shad. But bass stop roaming for a spell if they come across good cover objects on key offshore humps, flats, and points. It’s always been difficult, however, to pinpoint these structures and the pelagic schools of fish.

Eventually, a group of savvy anglers and guides discovered how to make bass fishing on Table Rock’s deep offshore coverts more fruitful by building brushpiles. Brian Snowden of Reed Springs, Missouri, and Tim Sainato of Walnut Shade, Missouri, belong to this group, and both are accomplished guides and tournament anglers.

Snowden’s Approach: Snowden built his first brushpile in 1998 and began guiding in 2003. By the summer of 2006, he figured he’d built more that 60. Most of Snowden’s piles are constructed of sycamore trees. “Sycamore have large limbs,” Snowden notes, “and the ones I use are about 15 feet tall and 9 feet wide. I anchor each tree so it rests horizontally along the bottom in water as shallow as 15 feet and as deep as 50. I place them within 5 to 25 feet of a drop-off. A major bend in a river or creek channel near a massive flat, hump, or point might be an ideal location.”

Snowden positions the piles according to reservoir topography. On Table Rock’s upper, shallower end, a significant drop might be just 5 feet. On the lower portions of the reservoir toward the dam, optimal drop-offs for brushpiles range from 50 to more than 100 feet. He places brush on barren areas, such as a huge gravel flat devoid of flooded timber, rockpiles, or stumps. Brushpiles thus become the key feature at that location. Because they’re such unique objects in these otherwise featureless locales, Snowden says bass are attracted to them within days. “But I don’t enhance a spot that already attracts bass,” Snowden adds.

“Precise placement isn’t critical, so I don’t need to position the tree with a rope. Just drop it overboard, and record the location on your GPS unit.” Snowden finds that his deepwater piles yield their best catches from June through October, and June is the best month. Several deep piles are productive during winter, as well.

Sainato’s Approach: Tim Sainato began his guiding career on Table Rock in 1974 and built his first deepwater brushpile in the 1980s. In addition to fishing, he’s spent countless hours scuba diving to keep an eye on Table Rock’s black bass. On his dives, he’s seldom seen bass congregating around a deep brushpile festooned with green leaves.

So, Sainato drops leafless sycamores, noting that they also sink more easily than those bearing leaves. Sycamores are durable; he rarely has to refurbish a productive pile. Like Snowden, he prefers trees from 10 to 15 feet long, anchoring each with a large rock tied in the middle of the trunk to keep it horizontal on the bottom.

Although he uses his fishing and diving experience to determine where to sink a pile, he finds many of his best spots from studying topographical maps. “Once I’ve located a potential spot on the map, I slowly cruise the area with sonar and may make a dive or two before placing a brushpile.” He typically places piles on spots from 15 to 45 feet deep.

Sainato built a set of deepwater brushpiles he can fish every month of the year, even during the Spawn Period. During the spawn at Table Rock, he doesn’t pursue bedding bass, instead fishing for prespawn or postspawn fish. These overlapping phases run from April into June, and non-nesting bass often find their way to his brushpiles.

To attract prespawn and postspawn fish, he places his brushpiles on gravel main-lake points that abut spawning sites. He notes that a deep creek channel should pass nearby. His piles at these spots lie in 25 to 28 feet of water and are placed on areas devoid of flooded timber or other cover. Sainato wants each brushpile to be the most outstanding object on a hump, deep flat, or point along a creek or river channel.

He also positions his piles on spots that are harder for other anglers to find, ignoring shorelines, boat docks, or main river-channel ledges that other anglers are likely to scan with their electronics.

Advanced GPS units have made offshore brushpile fishing far easier than when he sank his first one a quarter of a century ago. Back then, they were situated at spots he could visually triangulate by using a series of objects on shorelines. GPS, by contrast, allows piles to be placed at any potentially productive spot.

During his dives, Sainato has noticed that active bass invariably mosey around on the outside edges of brushpiles. Inactive fish snuggle inside the pile, with their noses pointed into the junction of the tree’s trunk and a limb, making it difficult to properly present a lure. That’s another reason he favors sycamores: Their wide branching makes it easier to work a lure close to inactive bass that have their noses pointed into a crevice.

Presentation Options for Brushpiles

In May and June, when bass are in prespawn, spawn, and postspawn phases, Sainato focuses on piles placed on gravel main-lake points at the entrance to spawning coves. Unless a cold front wreaks havoc with the fishes’ moods, he expects to find bass foraging on schools of threadfin shad at the edges of the trees.

He notes, however, that bass often hold on the structure itself and may not be directly associated with a brushpile. “At times, shad and bass may suspend 20 feet off the bottom and 10 feet below the surface, while at other times they’re tight to bottom in 15 to 20 feet of water.”

After checking bass position on sonar, he typically fishes a 1/4-ounce jighead and a 4-inch grub on spinning tackle with 8-pound-test fluorocarbon line. He fancasts the vicinity, making long casts and allowing the lure to fall to the depth bass and shad are holding, swimming it slowly through the shad schools.

At other times of year, Sainato experiments with three lures: a 3/4-ounce Jewel Bait Company PB & J-color football jig with a Chompers’ cinnamon-brown twin-tailed grub; a 3/4-ounce spoon; and a drop-shot rig with a 4-inch finesse worm that he fishes on spinning tackle. He makes long casts with the jig, but works the spoon and drop-shot rig more vertically.

Snowden’s Selections: When Snowden fishes piles in about 15 feet of water, he typically works with a football-head jig and soft-plastic trailer, Bomber BD-7F Fat Free Shad, and a Texas-rigged 6- and 91⁄2-inch Zoom worm in green-pumpkin and plum hues. For brush in 15 to 20 feet or so, he goes with a 1/2-ounce football jig and upsizes to 3/4-ounce in 20 to 35 feet of water. He casts the jig and executes a hopping retrieve through the brushpile and along its edges.

Snowden works the drop-shot vertically, dropping it within the branches. Once it reaches bottom, he lifts the rig 6 to 10 inches, gently shakes it for two seconds, then holds it dead-still for 20 to 30 seconds, repeating the shake-and-pause routine until a bass strikes.

For his deepest piles in 40 to 50 feet of water, he fishes a spoon or a drop-shot rig. He probes the interior portions of the brush with a drop-shot, working outside areas with a spoon. Snowden and Sainato both feel a drop-shot rig is the best tool for catching bass in deep brushpiles. That’s how Snowden caught most of his bass during a top-10 finish at the Table Rock Bassmaster Elite Series tournament in September 2006.

Tournament Tactics for Reading Brushpiles

The winner of that event, Todd Faircloth of Jasper, Texas, and runner-up Edwin Evers of Talala, Oklahoma, used drop-shot rigs, as well. In fact, Evers fished several of Sainato’s brushpiles, and Evers and Faircloth shared several piles throughout the four-day event.

When Evers arrived for prefishing, he had hopes of catching largemouths in Table Rock’s tributaries. After failing to define productive patterns in the upper portions of the James River, however, he abandoned the shallows and elected to search deeper areas for spotted bass. With his Lowrance LCX-26C sonar-GPS unit, he scouted scores of points, humps, and flats in the reservoir’s lower reaches, looking for brushpiles, shad, and bass in 25 to 40 feet of water.

Evers saved his most thorough examinations until after dark, however. When the wind and waves subsided after sunset, he was able to move more precisely and record the best spots on his GPS. He also wanted to do his scouting out of sight of other competitors.

His nocturnal endeavors paid dividends: When the tournament began on September 7, he’d identified 20 deep brushpiles that held aggregations of bass. After his 2nd place finish, he credited his state-of-the-art sonar and GPS. “Without such detailed readouts and accurate waypoint placement,” he said, “finding and returning to brushpiles smaller than my boat on offshore areas bigger than a football field would have been impossible.” During the 4-day event, Evers had caught all but one of his 20 bass from brushpiles.

The most productive piles were on the main lake, along a 15-mile swath of the lower third of this highland reservoir. On each tournament day, he tried to visit every brushpile four times; if he didn’t hook a bass within 10 minutes, he’d move to another.

He caught some bass on a white 3/4-ounce spoon, but most bit a drop-shot rig with a 4-inch purple-brown Kinami Cut Tail Worm, on an 18-inch leader above a 3/8-ounce drop-shot sinker. He used a 1/0 Owner Mosquito hook and tied a small swivel 2 feet above the hook and worm to limit line-twist. He’s also found that the swivel allows him to assemble several rigs beforehand. If one snags, he can quickly tie another rig to the swivel.

When spotted bass were active, Evers’ sonar showed them roaming 20 or more feet from the piles, and some would follow a hooked bass toward the surface. After noting this activity on his Lowrance, he kept another drop-shot rig ready. As soon as he landed a bass, he opened the bail of the other rig and dropped a second worm. On several occasions, another bass engulfed it immediately. This phenomenon occurred when the spots were most active, typically during midday.

Bass weren’t active most of the time, however, and he had to entice them by holding his rig dead-still. When bass were tentative, Evers had more success if the wind and the lake’s surface were calm, allowing him to place the rig precisely and hold it still.

His most productive depth was 32 feet. Even at that depth, and especially when bass were tentative, Evers found it important to operate his electric trolling motor slowly and steadily. He reported that whenever he turned the trolling motor around to reverse the boat’s path, the noise made bass more tentative.

At famed Table Rock Lake and at other waters across the land, the old art of brushpiling has undergone a renaissance, thanks to the marvels of hi-tech sonar and mapping GPS units. Experts note that winter is prime time to plan, manufacture, and plant piles of brush. The colder months provide leafless trees and, better yet, mean empty boat ramps, so your spots remain a secret between you and your GPS.

*Field Editor Ned Kehde of Lawrence, Kansas, has fished Ozark impoundments for four decades, and his detailed angling reports have appeared in In-Fisherman for almost 20 years.