Our area is getting pounded with rain. the lake i usualy fish is low right now so the rain will probley help it rise a little.  the lake has little shoreline brush and those areas are usualy not very productive. how will the fish be affected the next day and what will catch them?

Most likely they may scatter a bit and the bite will be tough.  What kind of water are you fishing?  Pond, natural lake, spillage, this may change the answer a bit.  Best bet in my book is cover water with a simple search bait.  Swimbait would be a good option in a regular size without too much flash.

that search bait stuff kills me. sometimes you can search through half your baits or more before you find one that works and everyone names a different bait as their 'search bait'. i would just recommend you throw what youre confident in and what has worked for you well in the past under similar conditions

If the water moves up into the buck brush - fish it with worms and jigs - anywhere there is a runoff comming into the lake, fish that particularly hard - another pattern you might check out is the "grass carp pattern" - last year while fishing in a situation like you describe, the carp were cutting up quite a bit in the shallows - after struggling for a while we discovered that all of the wallowing arouond was churning up stuff and the bass were hanging around to pick it off - by fishing around the edge of the carp wallow, we were able to start picking up some pretty good bass.

that search bait stuff kills me. sometimes you can search through half your baits or more before you find one that works and everyone names a different bait as their 'search bait'. i would just recommend you throw what youre confident in and what has worked for you well in the past under similar conditions

Aptly named fishing, and not catching  Do agree with the what you are confident in, guess that is why my search bait is a swimbait of moderate size.

Good luck out there. 

The shallow fish will move up with the water hanging on just about anything. Your deeper fish might just hang on the same cover or move up to the old shore line. Fish suspended in trees or brush will tend to suspend above the cover much like they would on a underwater hump or just adjust to the added depth by moving up higher in the water column. If the rain was heavy enough to dirty up the water try to find the cleanest water you can because the run off will mess up the pH and make fishing tough. The good news is sometimes the rain will lower the water temp and can turn on the fish.

I fish hours before the rain starts they put on the feed bag because they know the rain is comming.

I also fish durning the rain too they can also feed during this time too.

After the rain they seem to be tight lipped because of the bacteria is up in the water because the rain stirred it up.  This makes the PH way off too.  I try to check the PH often when the bite is off.

Two if the biggest fish I have caught this year came on blue bird skies following after a couple days of storms, in the middle of the day between 12 and 1.  Simply put, most of the fish may be tight lipped, but there will always be a hungry fish somewhere that is looking for food, and big bass have big appetites.

When it rains........just keep this in the back of your head.Actualy watch half the video too 

Before rain and during the rain (if it is light rain) I have had great success.