Central FL

Very murkey water with visibility about a foot in most places.

Used to have hydrilla but a hurricane destroyed most of it...hence the murkiness. Some grass still grows but only in a foot or two of water.

Predominate vegetation is Kissimmee Grass in 3-4 fow at most. Some lily pads in 4-5 fow.

Max depth is 9' that I found and the bottom out there is mucky due to the dead vegetation from year's past. I did get fish on the depth finder but they wanted nothing I threw at them. Crankbait wouldn't dig in the bottom correctly due to the muck. A worm worked on the bottom got mucked up as well.

The kicker is that there seems to be a very healthy population of shiners in the lake. I read it and witnessed it first hand when I hit of school of them first thing in the morning. Apparently the bass are hard to catch on artificials in this lake but tournaments still yeild 15-20lb bags. I have a tourney there next month.

Water temp was 79-81

Weather was very cloudy with the occassional sprinkle of rain.

A lot of docks on the lake but they only have 3 fow at most under them...and those are the few deeper ones. Most of them are about 2'

The weather, I'm assuming had the fish scattered...likely chasing shiners in open water. I did see some fish busting the surface but, again, they wanted nothing to do with anything I threw at them. A sunny day would've concentrated the fish more in the grass and possibly under the docks.

What would you have done in this instance?

Cover, cover, cover. It dosen't matter if those docks are in 2' of water or 200...fish will use them. Skip weightless softplastics way up under them with a stout spinning rod and some braided line, and/or work a top water bait down the sides, or under them.

Cover, cover, cover. It dosen't matter if those docks are in 2' of water or 200...fish will use them. Skip weightless softplastics way up under them with a stout spinning rod and some braided line, and/or work a top water bait down the sides, or under them.

Yep I fished about 20 docks, most of them with a white fluke, and only tagged one small fish. One thing I didn't do was really slow down on them but that just didn't fit with the weather conditions. I did throw a senko on a couple and threw a few spinnerbaits and frogs with no results. I'll certainly try this again with the sun out. I may even throw a shaky head in the mix but I just didn't think the fish were on the docks or I would've hit more than one.

I would throw a spinner bait into and around the cover or try a senko like you said you were doing, If the fish want to bite they will bite if not there is really nothing you can do.