Think of the riffles as the larder where all the food supplies originate. The pool is the dining room.

Take time to get familiar with the sink rates of your lines and lures. Then you can make minor adjustments on the water to get your bait to the fish before you spook them.

Studies show that lake bass often travel great distances and will "commute" up to seven miles a day. River bass, on the other hand, are homebodies. They often spend their entire life within the same pool, although there are some notable exceptions.

In Washington's Yakima River, smallmouths run 40 miles upstream from the Columbia River to spawn in the warmer tributary water before dropping back to their home water. But they are an exception. More often than not, bass stay close to the spots they hold in.

ANATOMY OF A STREAM
The ideal bass stream would have pools and drops, with a mostly cobble bottom of fist- to football-sized rocks. It will feature some larger in-stream boulders and a minimum of silt and sand.

The pools provide feeding, resting and safety habitat throughout the year. The boulders provide resting and feeding stations. Drops provide riffles that oxygenate the water, allowing aquatic insects to breed, forage fish to feed and crayfish to hide.

Think of the riffles as the larder where all the food supplies originate. The pool is the dining room.

POOLS
Each pool is divided into a head, middle and tail sections.

The head of the pool typically holds the most actively feeding fish because that is where their forage is concentrated. The middle section has the deepest holding water and provides sanctuary for resting fish. The tail-out should be thoroughly covered in morning and evening when flows are at summer levels.

Damian Forsythe, a fly-fishing guide on American River, offers advice on how to fish pools. In early season when the fish are lethargic due to lower water temperatures, he slowly swings small crayfish and baitfish imitations on sinking lines. If the fish don't hit, he slows down his presentation even more.

In the early season, whatever you fish with, be it flies or baits, use small stuff. The natural foods that bass eat are small because they haven't yet had the summer to grow. Save your bigger imitations for the fall feeding frenzy.

In summer when the water warms, Forsythe says tactics are determined by where the fish are located in the pool. If the fish are concentrated at the head, then he'll use topwater imitations. If the fish are hanging in the tail, a slow presentation will work best.

ISLANDS
Islands may be paradise to Jimmy Buffett, but to the bass angler, they are nothing more than big, exposed structure that divides and slows the current along the edges.

Bass will always be oriented towards structure, and out of the main current. The current often forms shoals along the island's sides or on the down-current end. Bass like to hang out on the protected sides of the shoals.

In spring, the upstream cobble bottom will hold bass. When fish are in their summer pattern, look for them on the downstream end where the current reforms into a single flow.