High and Dirty Water?

What do you do when the normally clean water you fish looks like a late’ and is up in the trees? The best answer for a lot of us might be to stay home and catch up on the yard work we’ve been neglecting. What if it lasts for a month? Maybe you’re on a fishing trip or have a tournament scheduled and have to make the best of it? While it might be easier to throw in the towel, sometimes we just need to fish!

The first thing an angler needs to consider what the change in water clarity, depth and quite possibly temperature does to a bass. The first thing that should cross our minds is that at least one of the bass’s senses has been compromised. Sight is perhaps the first thing to go in a muddy environment, but color still plays a role in lure choice even if it’s minimal. By knowing that one sense has been minimized an angler needs to take advantage of the other two, namely smell and the fish’s lateral line (vibration). Anglers should choose lures with a lot of vibration characteristics under less than optimum visual circumstances. Lures like crank baits and spinner baits are just the ticket. After we look at the other factors about how fish position we can better choose which crank baits and spinner baits fit our needs best. The other choice is to use soft plastics and weed less jigs with scent on them (and I mean bathed in the stuff).

Now that we know the water is off colored the next factor is the water level itself. This factor has more to do with where the bass are and the locations we fish. While it may be intriguing and even fun to cast up under flooded trees and other flotsam that may be in the area, if an angler can’t reach the farthest a bass can swim into the shallows they are handicapping themselves. Anglers should look for steeper banks in the areas they would normally fish. By taking advantage of the fact that even with a higher water level they can still reach the bank, anglers can optimize their fishing time.

The next factor with these flooded conditions anglers face is that the water in addition to being high and off color, it has now cooled from the weather somewhat. This means that most of the offshore structure and deep water bass patterns have been disrupted. With the exception of the spawn this could be the time when more bass are shallow than any other. This is the biggest reason anglers can find success along the shore at this time!

How do we put it all together and be successful? Here’s the plan. Our choice of lures in high dirty water is pretty simple to make. My first choice is a square billed crank bait like a Norman Little-N or a Bagley. It would be either chartreuse with a black or brown back with an orange belly or fire tiger. Since I’m probably keying in on 6 feet of water or less this bait is ideal and doesn’t hang up nearly as much as you might think. My next lure choice would be a 3/8ths ounce spinner bait in white and chartreuse. The important thing about the bait is that I would use one with Colorado blades for more vibration than willow leaf blades (and of course a trailer hook). Choice number three is a 3/8ths ounce jig any color as long as it has some black in it and has rattles. My trailer would be a scented chigger craw or pork frog. Rod number four would have a creature bait like a Zoom Baby Brush Hog colored June bug or Black with a chartreuse tail. This is a mission where the drop shot, shaky head and other finesse tactics would be put on the shelf.

My tactic would be to hit the lake and cover lots of water, in fact I would cover as much water as possible. Somewhere in that journey I would find an area with fish and then spend some time in that area before moving on.

Well, that’s the best advice I can give an angler fishing less than ideal conditions this time of the year. I’ll see you on the water.

Comments

[Hernandez89]

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