Ive been fishing with my friend in his boat for the last couple of weeks in the near by lake, and still cant seem to pull a single fish out of there.  We fish rattle traps, cinkos, magic worms, jerk baits, and 8' diving craink baits on submerged rocks, tree's, mud lines, docks, and every type of cover you can think of.  The lake is usually rough, windy, full of skiers, and is stained in color, and I believe that could be part of the problem.  What am I doing wrong?  We also fish a smaller lake about fourty minuets from that lake, and in the same conditions I caught 3-4 smallies, and a trout on a rattle trap.  Please help me I'm having bass withdralws :-[. lol. ;D

i feel your pain. I just got permission to fish a water shed (i have to pay $3 every time i go).. anyways, i had been 6 times with not even a nibble. I finally started watching other guys, and made sure it was bass fishers. I watched their pattern, and then talked to people who were putting in boats, just asking where the bass were.

I finally hit them, and without the help of the fishers there. I found where the inlets/outlets were, and started fishing the points or anything that looked like an ambush spot for bass. The best baits i have found to be productive so far is the floating rattle trap, and a 1/8oz Texas rigged Junebug worm in 7.5"

another guy there was using 4" green pumkin ringers, but that was while the bass were still on the bed.

Sounds ike you are on the right track. You are fishing in the right places. Two things I'd suggest-try a shallow running crankbait in and around the cover. I've been catching them lately on a Bandit 100 series. It will run 2-5 feet but it has a square lip so it is pretty snag free even in heavy timber. The other is to try a wacky rig with a senko-type bait or a straight tailed worm. If you are not familiar with this rig here is how to rig it:

Just cast it out and let it sink, but be sure to watch your line-a lot of times you don't feel a hit-your line starts to tighten up or the bait gets "heavy". I fish a lake very similar to the one you describe but it has clear water-and lots of wind, lake lice and skiers. I can catch fish on the wacky rig when nothing else works.

One thing I would try is to find a change in the bottom.  Even though the fish will likely be shallow because of the muddy water even a slight two-foot dropoff can hold alot of bass.  Look for creek channels, river channels, road beds, and ledges.  A good place to start would be were a creek runs into the side of the lake.  Just a thought.  Good luck.

I have a few lakes that I fish that have heavy traffic. If you can tuck back out of the traffic you might be able to pick up a few fish. What I found that works for me is to slow way down and dead stick the bait some. In the heavy traffic areas you need to figure out what zone the bass are hanging at. With all the traffic and waves and such bass tend to suspend you might have a 3ft zone depth that the bass might be using. Deep fish are less effected and shallow fish are most effected. Free moving cover tends to hold less bass than cover that is attached to the bottom. The shallow bass will be super tight to cover if you miss by and inch you missed it by a mile. Reaction fishing can be key (bumping the cover or using speed to force a strike). You need to fish methodically and kinda pick it apart. Your deep fish will either be suspended up looking for bait or hugging the bottom. If they are up and you don't see bait on your graph you need to find another spot because they might not be active.  

That's the kind of place I would hit in the off hours.  Night time is the right time.  I firmly believe that bass in high traffic lakes tend to be more active at night when the lake isn't getting assaulted.

i agree, with a lake with a visability of 2-4 feet is tuff to fish in my neck of the woods (southern michigan), i would sudjust throwing topwater in the morning some sort of popper or a spook over hydrilla or mid depth flats and after it warms up a little bit, the fish are going to move either shallow or deep, arround here it is rare that the fish will stay in the mid depths, of 3-9 foot, i would expeirement with shallow docks and boat lifts first, first of all because it is eisier and second that it will give you a target were the fish should be holding and you can pitch the wacky rig rite on top of them, if no luck there i would try going to a rattle trap or a sinking jerk bait, move out a little farther and throw toward the higher ground and bring it down into them depths of 10-15 feet, many of times when i cant get anything in the tuffer part of the morning, i will move to the drop offs and start picking them apart, bringing that bait down the drop off triggers alot of strikes for me. i hope this helps, this is how i generally fish a mudded lake, good luck!!

                  hillbilly

i forgot one thing,

                        try going to the lilly pads and throwing a topwater frog, or rat, i throw a moss mouse over the pads and i generate tons of strikes doing this is the late morning, but muddy water might not send them into the cover until later morning, when things really heat up, and reverse this at night as well  start with the wacky rig around the docks and rattle traps in the drop offs and then later on move to the topwater,

                            hillbilly

I'd try night fishing under those conditions.