Chris

I am a 1 I know nothing

I fished a lake last month like that the water temp as in the 80's air temp was in the 90's and I caught fish in no more than 3 ft deep. If it was a individual tournament instead of a team tournament I would have won but those are the breaks I guess.

This is what I do when I pitch a jig or tube. I pitch it to a spot and stip off about 3 ft of line maybe more if I am fishing deep. My jig or tube falls on slack line and falls straight. I then lift my rod tip up to feel if they grabbed it on the fall. If they didn't then I work the lure and leave a simi slack line then raise the rod to check for a strike. Most of my strikes they do not hit it and spit it very often. You have more time to detect a strike than you think. If you give them a second sometimes your will catch the fish that first grab the trailer then the jig. With a tube sometimes the grab the skirt then the rest of the bait. By giving the bass that extra second you will hook those fish that otherwise would be a lost fish. What I mean by second is the strike happeneds you count one thousand one one thousand two set the hook. When the fish are inactive they might grab a hold of the bait then while they swim off they inhail the rest of the bait. This helps in that situation.

Here is a post I did that might help. http://bassresource.com/cgi-bin/bass_fish/YaBB.pl?board=Fishing_Tackle_ID;action=display;num=1116463677

Don't feel bad I still yard fish. I do it mainly now to check out a new line or other equipment. So your not the only one.

Don't worry I still ask stupid questions ;D

I was fishing a tournament on this lake and found a hump sitting in 12 ft of water. I was cranking the hump and something smacked my lure and the fight was on. It was a slow day and this fish had to be a toad and I knew when I got it in I would win the tournament. When I got it in I found out that I had caught a 52 inch musky. At the end of the tournament they asked me if I had anything to weigh in and I said no unless this is a musky tournament :-/. The guy that won had a 4lb bass and he said that he threw his bait out in the middle and was picking a backlash. He said he looked up to see his fish jumping out in the middle and his line was taking off. I guess he was using a plastic worm.

On that spot you talking about the fish should be suspended out in the 12 ft water. They might be hanging at 6 ft deep but it will be 6ft down in 12ft of water. I have a place that I fish that has a ton of musky in it. You can pitch a jig in the shallows and catch some fish but you will loose more jigs on musky than catch bass. The bass in this lake have become open water fish. They don't spend to much time in the shallows. This lake is also covered in weeds both deep and shallow. All of the bass tournaments on this lake for the past 3 years have been won fishing the suspended fish. You would think that you could hammer them flipping or fishing the shallow cover but this lake doesn't fish that way. Your lake might be the same. They might not be in the cover but around it. He is what I do On places that dump off like a flat that dumps off to 8ft or so I position my boat so that I can fish the edge. I want my bait to run the whole time in that 8ft depth parallel to the depth change. I might move out some to figure out what depth they are hanging at then concentrate on that depth. If you position you boat way out in the deep water and cast to the edge you may not hit the area that the fish are hanging and you are pulling your bait away from the fish. Break the areas down into zones. 5ft zone then 8 ft and so on fish the zone then change around until you figure them out. Watch your graph and figure out what zone the bait is hanging at then use that as a starting point. Now find cover or structure that are at that depth thats holding fish and bait. If they are suspended in open water then you can count down a jig then swim it at that depth or do the same thing with a spinnerbait and hit them. You crank for them figure out which bait can hit that depth and how far of a cast it takes to reach that depth. You can fish them with a tube or jigging spoon. You can count down a rattletrap and yes ripping a trap in the weeds works great.

If you have enough light from the moon you can change colors to white and chartreuse and still hammer fish. It kinda like early morning light fish can see them in the moonlight. I used a white spinnerbait and Bandit spatterback lures at night and caught 20+ fish one night. A jig and pig with a chartreuse trailer works at night too and you can see the trailer to help you put the bait where you need it.

If you got one area with depth and hard bottom I would start there. Isolated patches of grass would be my next stop. Flip them with a tube, swimming jig, or a grass jig. This lake kinda sounds like a rattletrap lake or a spinnerbait lake. It kinds sounds like the fish suspend alot because of the muck bottom. A jerkbait might be another option. Also nobody said that you need to bounce a crankbait off the bottom to catch fish. 90% of the bass I catch are when to bait never touches the bottom. In dirty water 90% of the time I let my bait ram something because it helps them locate the bait in clear water its not as important. If you say there is 3 ft vis than the bass can see 6ft so I would target that depth. Right now the fish should be schooling but you say that your finding that the fish is scattered. My guess is that you need to cover water and when you stick a good fish stop and really work the area.

During the day hydrilla still hold bass because it produces oxygen and hidding places for bait and bass. In the morning I like to fish it with a frog. Buzzbait work well in the morning also.This pattern at times can produce all day long. In the afternoon I tend to flip it with a tube or jig. I try to target little openings and let my bait fall to the bottom. Make sure you use a rattle so it helps the fish find your bait. Soft and hard jerkbaits work well on the edges and a baby 1- works when you got room between the weeds and the surface. Rattle traps and spinnerbaits work also to give you other options.

Welcome to the forum! ;D

Right now anything that looks like a bass pattern is a good lure to throw. Right after a bass comes off the bed and guarding fry guess what their feed bag is on and baby bass is just one of many things on their plate.

What bait are you using? What pound test line? What hooks are on your bait? What size hooks? What gear ratio is your reel? What kind of rod are you using? Stiff? med/heavy? fiberglass? Im6?Are the fish jumping and throwing your hook or are they just getting off without any reason? This is where you need to look to figure out why they are not staying on the hook. Round body baits that the hooks are still covered by the bait when they swing are easy to throw. Its hard to get a good hook into the fish with these baits. Short shank hooks have the same problem. If the fish swats at it you get a poor hook up the same with triple grip hooks But if the fish are grabbing the bait they work great. If you are getting a lot of bass swatting at the bait a round bend hook is better. If you jump to a larger size your hook ups go up even more. Line stretch is another factor. 10 LB test works great if you need depth on your bait but it stretches bad. Mainly on a long cast. Beef up you line if you can to 12 LB or 14 LB test. Gear ratio can cause you lost fish. With a low gear ratio it takes longer and more turns of your handle to take up slack. Where you loose them is when a bass makes a surge and you can't keep up. Kind of rod or what its made out of. Graphite rods are more sensitive than fiberglass. You feel the fish faster and you react faster. This don't give the bass enough time to take the bait deep. What happened is the bass gets hooked on the outside of the mouth. A lot of times they only get one hook of the treble hook. Hook set makes a difference because a lot of crankbaits have light wire hooks. You can set the hook and rip the hooks out or rip a big enough hole in the fish so that it frees up the bait. By sweeping the rod and keeping pressure on the fish and not trying to horse the fish to the boat is a better deal. Just the pressure of the line being tight will drive the hook home. When you get them out to the open water back off your drag or push the free spool and thumb the fish tired. Sometimes if I see that a fish is not hooked well as I fight the fish I try to stick it with more hooks. I just point my rod in a different direction than the fish is going while still giving the fish drag and it ends up driving more hooks in it.

sight fishing ;D

I would call the fish and game commission and they might net them out and move them. We had a problem like that in Florida and some of the drain ponds around the airport in orlando where going dry so they neted out the bass that where stocked there and put them in different ponds.

yeah I was kinda thinking the samething Rw They might have just stocked it.

when you have to many bass and not enough food the bass don't grow

It might be that the larger bass are few or that the lake is stunned. Small bass like how small fingerling size or 14 inch size? Try tp beef up your baits and see if that works out.(pssst. welcome to the forum)

If I can get away with it I like to fish stained to muddy water in the summer or running water. They are easier to locate. Lures for stained water would be 1/2oz jig, big body crankbait, or a spinnerbait single blade. In clear water deep is the way to go or shallow heavy cover. 1/2 oz jig, tube, jigging spoon, carolina rig, dropshot, deep crankbaits, 1/2 oz or 1 oz spinnerbaits, 12" or 7 1/2" worm, 9" lizard, brush hog, or a rattletrap.

I'll give you one thats not listed thats good. Bill Dance's Fishing Illustrated

Fish the river bends or any change in bottom like a muck bottom to a gravel bottom. Fish places that have current breaks like a big rock or log. Also if one side has a steep bank or a place where bait will be washed into.

I have a lake that I have a tournament on tomorrow thats kinda like that. It is loaded with shad. I mean you see pods of shad everywhere you go in the lake, river, shallow, deep, everywhere. For my tournament I am fishing places where bass come to feed ambush points. Any place that bottlenecks the shad. In the lake I am fishing flats and a island that has timber all over it. Ontop of the flooded island is about 2-3ft deep and drops off into 12 ft deep. At night the shad move up in the timber and the bass move up with them. Around midmorning the shad move off of the flats and out to open water. The bass move off and suspend or follow the shad. They migrate following the breakline all the way to the river. In the river I target bends in the river channel. I look for places where the channel swings close to the bank. I target points, and places where flats dump out to the channel. Sometimes you will see little openings that open up to the flat. Fish the little openings because its a bottleneck the funnels baitfish and bass will be there.

Violate purple in green water. It contrasts the greenness and fish can pick it out better. In dark water if I am fishing shallow baits I use baits with metal flake like junebug, black neon, black blue flake. In deeper water where I know sun penetration is low I use solid dark colors or two tone like black and blue or black and chartreuse tails. Overcast skies in clear water I use light colors like pumpkin seed or redshad with the worm turned over so that the red is on the back. Overcast skies in dark water I still use dark worms. If I am fishing in cover weeds or wood I use colors or metal flake worms that contrast the cover. I like redshad green flake, junebug, black blue flake for cover. I use the flake to help my bait stand out from the cover.

LoL you made me grab my flipping stick to figure out how I set the hook. I use a long handle rod and with my left arm at a right angle the butt of the rod sits on my side rested between two ribs resting on the side of my body. I twist my torso to the right when I set the hook and the rod is still sitting on my left side using my side for leverage.