In the fall when we have very little rain, a lot of bright sun and the bass seem hard to find; boat docks offer a good target. Over the years some big tournaments have been won on Guntersville by fishing the docks in the mid part of the day during the fall of the year. I ve found that when we have a lot of clear water like we do in the fall that the bigger bass have a tendency to move to the boat docks for shade. The key is finding productive docks that have good fish!Boat dock fishing can have an enormous amount of dead time unless you learn to eliminate non-productive boat docks. There are some keys to finding productive boat docks. The first thing I do is go to my GPS map and look for boat docks that have creeks that swing around or near a set of boat docks. The next thing is to make sure that there is deeper water near by, at least within a 100 feet of the dock. Both of these keys are crucial to finding bass, a creek that swings near or next to a set of docks offers cooler water and generally water movement. Bass always like deeper water near by and this just increases your chances of finding good fish. I also look for docks with several arms and what appears to be a lot of shade, both of these offer-increased chances of finding lunker bass. The more arms the more corners; this creates more shade around the boat docks, hence the bass have more places to hide from the sun.
Lastly you must be an accurate caster; you re lure must go exactly where you want it. Target the shade, the walkways, and the corners and get that lure up under at least 18 inches of the edge into the shade. To do that you must have great lure placement, this requires practice maybe in your backyard and good boat position. Practice putting your lure where it needs to be, and get your boat positioned to hit the spot you need to on the first cast. This will lead to productive boat dock fishing.