Cover

Cover gives a fish two things at once: somewhere to ambush from and somewhere to hide from what would eat it. A bass sitting under a dock or inside a laydown has shade, an edge to work against, and a place to attack out of.

It is also what dictates your tackle. Fishing cover means weedless rigging, heavier line and enough rod power to pull a fish out before it wraps you around something. That is most of what separates a bass setup from a panfish setup.

Ponds usually have plenty of cover and very little structure, so cover is what you fish on small water.

Not all cover holds fish equally. Isolated cover, one laydown on an otherwise bare bank, concentrates fish far more reliably than the same laydown in a hundred yards of identical wood. When cover is everywhere, look for whatever is different about one piece of it.