Swest18x

Forgot time of day: 5 - 730 PM. Dusk when we left.

Just want to add, it was a muddy bottom but zero weeds in this area, lots of sticks to snag was the problem but no vegetation for cover

I'm relatively new to bass fishing and looking to learn from this situation. Please respond with any thoughts: Western NY small reservoir, April 22, weather's been cold this Spring. I've never fished this place before, taking my 7 year old out for the first time in our new canoe, we coast into a short branch of the lake about 100 yards long no more than 40 feet wide. Real shallow, laydowns and brush hanging in the water, a small 10 foot diameter island. I wasn't expecting much action but it was a warm day and we realize the water here in the shallows is close to 60 degrees, start to see blowups, fish jumping near the brush and lay downs but some right out in the open water. I had a Keitech with an Owner underspin tied on, a second pole with a craw colored chatterbait. I cast awhile with both no luck, my son a small paddletail, seeing all the action on the top of the water and not being prepared with any surface lures I decided to tie on a 4 inch fluke weedless. I spent a lot of casts that way, right next to the brush, all over really, zero bites. Switched to a hair jig on the second pole and lost it right away, stayed with the fluke till the very end, when I switched to a lighter color chatterbait no trailer. In the middle of all this scrambling my son had to pee so we ended up standing on the island casting from there staring bass in the face 15 feet away and in the end all I had to show for it was a foul hooked sucker. The water was real dirty, my thinking going back to the chatterbait was low visibility let the noise attract them. As for the fluke, I kept it near the surface fishing it like a slow jerkbait. It looked great in the water, cant figure out what it would have taken to get these fish to bite. The baitfish jumping looked like small 1 -2 inch minnows, I had some smaller flukes but no small hooks to rig weedless. It was all happening so fast I didnt want to waste time swapping colors but i had some darker flukes (i was using white) i could have tried. I'm no good at flipping/pitching and didnt want to waste time on snags so that's why i didnt jig the brush. I had all the gear to drop shot but in low vis I was thinking that's not the way to go either, and drop shot is new to me it would have been the first time doing it. I had crankbaits too but in places the water wasn't 2 feet and I think I would have lost anything with trebles right away. So what do you think? Was my fluke too big? Wrong color? Any chance the bass weren't actually feeding? What should I have done different? I feel like we should have walked out of there with 5 fish easy. Tell me how you would have played it, I'm looking to learn. Thanks for any advice!