There's a wide bay on one of my fisheries. 12 feet of water, 4 to 6 feet of visibility, mud bottom. When I arrive in darkness, my fish finder is lit up with suspended fish. They scatter before they get active, then after daybreak I'm picking them off with moving baits. My question is, what technique would you try to provoke some bites while they're still schooled up in low light? They don't usually react to my topwaters or cranks in this situation. Smallmouth and largemouth here.

5 hours ago, Swest18x said:

When I arrive in darkness, my fish finder is lit up with suspended fish.

Pick up a 5"-6" floating swimbait. A 6th Sense Trace is affordable. Both can be thrown on a typical H rod rated to 1 1/2 ozs if you don't have a swimbait setup. Buy some 1/4" wide lead self-adhesive tape. Apply to the bottom of the bait in front and behind the first hook. Wrap the shank of the front treble too. This will give you a slight nose-down presentation. Add strips until you achieve about a 1/2' foot per second sink rate for the current water temp. Cast past them and play with the retrieve where you see them suspended. You can stall the bait in their vicinity, then twitch and vary your retrieve. Basically, present them a sitting duck or a fleeing fish. Bait typically darts then stops, so try to replicate that with pauses in between.

Weightless fluuuuke

A strolling bait?

Thanks for the replies. I went back there last week and lost a monster smallie when he tangled in my anchor, you can bet I'm going back to find him again. That was in daylight though. The big swimbait idea is an interesting one, and I need to pick up on the strolling thing sometime, maybe I'll give it a try next weekend.

Are you certain that what you're graphing in the dark are bass? I had a similar situation a few years back and after sun-up, I began catching bass on a popper. One of them coughed up a bluegill as I was pulling it out of the water. The bass were sitting just off the area and moved in as it got light. The bluegill were still there, but scattered when it started getting light.