Was marking a large number of fish on edge of creek channel in brush piles, on a 20ft transition to 12-15ft but couldn't catch a thing. Water temp was 42° today but I had this happen to me a couple other times this summer. Both were on smaller dam sites.

 

During the summer, I tried T rig, chatterbait, deep crank, maybe others. Today I tried swim jig, 1/10oz ned rig, 1/4oz t rig curlytail worm, fluke, and slow rolled spinnerbait. I tried casting down wind and into wind, casting from a ways off and getting in closer to the cover.

 

I don't really know what question to ask, just very frustrated. Part of me feels it may have just been the wrong part of day for this particular body of water but another part of me says those fish were catchable.

 

Any tips/info appreciated( and maybe a hug). Today was probably last day out on the boat(live in nebraska) but I am always trying to learn and will carry over ideas for next year.

EDIT. Sorry for posting in wrong subforum. My posting skills are about on par with my fishing skills, would move it if I knew how.

I've only caught Largemouth in water less than 42 degs one or two times, so I'm with you there. Water was 60 here today and I couldn't find any good ones.

 

T-Rigs and Jigs are my favorite to try in that scenario though..are you sure they are Bass? If they are stacked vertically, maybe Crappie or White Bass? Curious to see what others say.

2 minutes ago, Todd2 said:

I've only caught Largemouth in water less than 42 degs one or two times, so I'm with you there. Water was 60 here today and I couldn't find any good ones.

 

T-Rigs and Jigs are my favorite to try in that scenario though..are you sure they are Bass? If they are stacked vertically, maybe Crappie or White Bass? Curious to see what others say.

I do not know for sure they were bass, I saw Mr. Ranger Boat catch one about 200 yards away, also on the channel but there was another boat crappie fishing in between us. This was the only place I saw fish on side/down imaging all day, would assume it would be a mix of fish. The lake contains decent populations of LMB, crappie, bluegill and channel cats no white or yellow bass. It's only a 84 acre lake and we covered dang near entire shoreline/shallow areas and only landed one fish in about 6ft of water on ned rig.

Try a jigging spoon or blade bait.

They seem to work pretty good for bass in deeper water.

11 hours ago, mrpao said:

Try a jigging spoon or blade bait.

They seem to work pretty good for bass in deeper water.

Yep...this was my first thought as well.

what's the forage like? try to drop shot 'em or a bounce a football head around

How do you know the fish are bass?

If the marks are stacked up vertically they are more then likely crappie.

Tom

 

On 11/4/2019 at 9:22 AM, drew4779 said:

Yep...this was my first thought as well.

Kicking myself, I had just recently bought a couple spoons but did not bring them. Will try this and a drop shot as well. Although I believe I did try a drop shot the previous time this happened to me.

 

Forage is bluegill and crappie.

The fish were just off bottom and hugged up against the cover(brush piles), as stated before, I am sure many of them were crappie. But I witnessed a guy close catch a bass and there were a large number of marks so I have a hard time believing it was all crappie and no bass.

Thanks for responses

I would have given thought to a deep diving jerk bait fishing it very very slow

 

Using sonar to locate structure and cover with fish is your goal. Determining what the sonar returns are takes time on the water. I only used sonar since it became available for recreational fishing in the mid 60's and I can't always tell what fish species  I am seeing on the screen. 

I know from experience the location and depth the OP discribed the sonar returns were more then likely crappie. Crappie feed on small baitfish, bass feed on crappie so it's all good. Catching bass around an abundant prey source isn't always a sure thing, it can be very challenging. First things first, determine what the fish are by catching them. 

Crappie feed on smaller baitfish so try lures a crappie will eat, smaller size Structure spoons, crappie jig or lures that replicate a crappie. There are lots of different predator fish in every lake, some are difficult to catch unless you target them.

Tom