After a many year break I'm back into the fishing scene. I bought a 10 foot Basshunter and installed a Lowrance Hook 4 on it to fish a few local lakes in my area, northern Illinois.

There's a local lake with nice, clear water that gets quite a bit of shore pressure, especially on weekends.  You can only use a boat in the top shown lake, Mallard. The Shallow area to the west of the two walking bridges have a thick carpet of grass/weeds that basically cover the entire bottom. Most of the northern shoreline is clear of weeds with rock.  I was out a few days ago, water surface temp was 57 degrees.

 

Any pointers or ideas on potential hot spots on this lake?  Lures?  I'm trying to speed up my learning curve here.2011_MallardLakeMallardCloverdaleMap (1).pdf

If that lake was in northern NY, where I'm from, I would be fishing that massive shallow flat with water temps in the upper 50s.  Particularly, near those 5 foot holes.  If there are any pads growing up on that flat, I'd hit those for sure.  Light spinnerbaits, bladed jigs, swimjigs, and swimbaits are what I use for pre-spawn shallow water fishing.

Mallard Lake looks pretty sweet.  Plenty of deep water and some nice shallow areas.  Right now the bass should be starting to move into the shallows and possibly even starting to spawn.  I'd fish all around that island and in the  shallow area to the left of it.   I would then go to the lower left corner and try that shallow area.  I also would cover most of the shore line and any type of cover you see in the water like trees, stumps, weeds and brush.

Interesting small natural lake with deepest water shown as 25', most of that being in the upper lake area with a few deep water areas near the island in the lower lake area. The large 2' to 5' flats located near the top of the lower lake area below the bridges should be considered the major LMB spawning area unless the bottom is too mucky and weed covered. Right now most of the LMB should in the 5' to 8' zone as pre spawners. Because this small has pike and musky, bass are secondary predators and relegated to weed edges, the deeper water zones belong to the top predators in this natural lake.

Until the water gets above 75 degrees, focus your efforts in and around the LMB spawning areas and depths noted, the bass may use any wind protected areas in 1' to 5' of water to spawn, that means the entire perimeter of the small lake where the bottom suites the bass.

weed beds usually have some hard bottom areas that create open pockets, fish all of weed edges with open water.

Soft plastics T-rigged, Ikas, frogs, weedless spoons, smaller size buzz baits would be good choices to start with. 

Tom 

I always look for break points where the water drops off significantly.  I fish these areas methodically.  These transitions points can produce a number of big fish.  Bass will often stage in these areas after or before a sudden change in the weather, and during the pre, and post spawn.  I have caught loads of decent bass around the break points  Fish a trick worm, senko, or fluke on both sides of the drop-off.  Let it flutter all the way down to the bottom, or up on the flat,  and work it slow.  Break points, with vegetation on the shallow side, can be magical.