River Fishing Arizona - 3/21/2020 - ADVICE NEEDED

[2marshall8]

There's a stretch of this river my dad and I have fished for years and in the spawn we usually average around 12 fish combined per day. just 2 weeks prior we caught close to that number, fishing the same waters. That was on the tail end of a warm front where temps were up into the low to mid 80's for 3 days in a row. The river has coves with flats that contain a mix of gravel/rock bottom, mud, reeds, lay-downs and also these small lilly pads which usually contain gravel bottoms. I tried flipping these lilly pads w/a creature bait and a 6" lizard w/o luck, I also fished this war eagle spinnerbait in and around the reeds and pads and managed to get one. My only other fish was on a black senko flipped into some trees and the bite came as I jerked the bait out towards me. We focused mostly on backs of these coves which were shallower and had more of the vegetation/structure we thought the bass would be on during the spawn. As you can see from the pic of the bass I caught on the spinnerbait the tail is red and split so I'm guessing we aren't pre-spawn but spawn right now. I also noticed some bass fry in the shallows. We found another angler there who said he had blanked, so something was definitely off in those waters today. 

 

Any ideas what may have happened or why fishing had changed so drastically and what I could have done to put more fish into the boat? We obviously didn't use the right tactics when we were out fishing. I thought with being in the spawn we would be catching fish left and right.

 

Prior Weeks Weather: mid 50's lows, low 70's high. There was a cold front that blew through just last Wednesday 3/18 and brought temps to low 40's as low, and low 60's as high. this also brought some rain.

Weather: low 48 high 72. light occiasional wind, sunny

Surface Water Temps: Started 64 7:30am ended 69 at 1:30pm

Water Clarity: 6-8" in most places, especially backs of coves. upto 10" in main river

Vegetation:Reeds, small lilly pads

Structure: laydowns, rocks, overhanging trees

Total Fish: 1 3lber and 1 1.5lber

Fish Caught on: War Eagle 1/2oz Gold Head w/Green Chartreuse Skirt Tandem Gold #5 Colorado w/ #2 or 3 Red Kicker Blade w/Strike King Pearl White and Black Big Bite Baits Senko 5" w/#2 gold colorado blade rigged texas w/4o Red EWG Hook

 

 

[Scott F]

Has the water clarity changed? Has the current speed increased? 

[2marshall8]

water clarity is sill the same, although the water had come up at least 1ft and had flooded up into the banks making many areas unreachable to fish due to the heavy brush preventing access. current was almost stagnant like the prior visit. thanks for the questions.

[Scott F]

Gotta get out of the current. High water pushes bass very tight to the bank in eddies and deep into the bushes where there is no current. 

[2marshall8]

Thats what was strange. we were mainly fishing backs of coves where there was no current. that's where all the fish were caught but we could only get 2 total. this was an underpressured area of the river, so why didn't we get more bites, what could we have done to improve our catch rates?

[WRB]

Are you fishing the lower Colorado River area below Blyth? Does  the poor depth of light water quality it makes it difficult to see beds? The bass had definately moved up to spawn and raising colder water shut it off is my guess. Still getting some storms in the area for about a week so I wouldn't expect a quick change. Try pitching black jigs into tight to cover and look for bass on beds.

Tom