What Would You Fish With Here?

[GoTakeANap]

Hello Guys And Gals. Im having trouble catching some fish in this area. Here are 3 pics of what it looks like. This place goes on and on and on and looks just like it does in the pics. The water is 2 to 5 ft deep. Would like to know what you would use if you were fishing here? So far ive fished senkos, jigs, frogs and crankbaits. Havent caught a single bass. Not even a bite fishing this area the past 4 trips. Ive spend 3 to 4 hours in this area everytime i come to my local lake. I believe there is bass here just having trouble finding them. I figured im fishing my lures wrong or not using the right lures. Any help would be Great,. Please post what you would use. The water is also dirty/dark.

[GoTakeANap]

2nd pic

[GoTakeANap]

3rd

[Scorcher214]

After a frog, I would use a 1/2oz white spinnerbait, gold blades, and try to find "lanes" to throw it down. Running it next to or even right through those pads. Also, since you say the area is all pretty much the same, I would try finding a change in bottom composition, weeds, or sudden depth change. Goodluck!

[KingMidas]

I have had luck locating fish with large craws or beaver style baits Texas rigged with a 1/8 oz. bullet weight. I try to cast it near the edges of weeds or anywhere that the surface of the water changes. Getting the bait to slap the surface when it comes in seems to help. When i do this, if I don't get a hit on the fall to the bottom I will retrieve it fairly quickly and often end up with more of a reaction strike as a result. Also a hop n stop retrieve works well. With the hop n stop, I notice bass dont seem to pick the craw up off the bottom as often as when fishing a trick or ribbon tail worm. In my experience, they seem to stare at it while its stationary and then slam it when you give it a 1-2 foot pull. I like Berkeley havoc fatty craws, yum wooly bugs, and rage tail craws the best for this. They seem to have an attractive profile on the fall which I think is important for this.

[Sam]

Go deep young man, go deep!!!

Try a Carolina or MOJO rig.

Throw a drop shot all over the place.

Continue to pitch and flip to the shoreline.

Rig your worms and Senkos wacky.

Flip and pitch to all wood you can find and among weeds, stumps,pads and stickups. A weed patch or lilly pad bed by itself can hold bass as can a lonely stump. Some nice bass have been caught next to a stickup all by itself a little off the bank.

Do you know the water temperature? The bass will be seeking cooler and more oxygenated water which is deep right above the thermocline so you may need to throw baits that 1) sink slow and 2) are above the bottom.

Bass love Senkos. If you are not getting bites on a Senko then downsize the size to a 4 or 3 inch Senko and start all over.

Are you using MegaStrike or JJ's Magic on all baits? Do you think a touch of yellow or orange on your plastics will help? How about a little touch of orange oil based paint covered with nail polish on your crankbait bottoms and below the eyes?

Also, have you fished the lake before and during sunrise with a Cavitron buzzbait or a frog? What about at night when the sun goes down? Same baits.

You will have to try to find where the fish are hiding and what they want to eat. You will experiment with lots of baits and presentations until you find the daily pattern. Try crankbaits and spinnebaits and a Chatterbait.

Shaky Head presentations on a 1/16 jig head may work as may jigs and pigs dragged across the bottom or hopped back to you.

Fish s-l-o-w if possible. Let the bait fall slow and sit for about 30 seconds before moving it. Bass are inquisitive animals and they will hover and look at the bait. When you twitch it they will hit it.

Throw to any wood you can find.

Just remember, the bass will stay in the area but off shore to enjoy the cooler and more oxygenated warter.They will like an area with a deep dropoff into deeper water and near places where they can rush to the bank and chase down a nice morsel and then return to deeper water.

Once you find the underwater humps, brushpiles, trees, logs, rocks, roadbeds, stickups, sunken boats, etc. you will catch them, if they are in the lake.

Good luck and let us know what you throw and how you caught them.

[Lund Explorer]

Like Sam said, the only place I could see worth fishing is in the second picture. Head right between those trees and out into the main lake!

[Jig Meister]

I would work those pads as much as you can, poppers on the top, spinners for upper/medium water and try some jigs or trigs for the bottom.

and what everyone else saiid, looks like a nice place!

[BassinMD]

For me I would pitch jigs to as much timber as I could find also make sure you are shadow fishing bass wil sit on the shady side of things to stay as cool as possible, this time of year you might not have mug luck that shallow though if there are not deeper points in the area, bass will head to the deepest points of oxygen rich water when it gets into the 75+ degree water. Another good option would be a frog near the pads or if you find any heavy grass mats. Punchin through these grass mats is also a great way to catch them in the heat, but as most of the people said your best option might be to mark the spot and hit the main lake until water temps reach te 60s then your new found spot might be packed with hungry bass

[GoTakeANap]

santee cooper is a great bass lake. i know they have a pro circuit that comes to this lake every so often so i know there are bass out here. i have never found a drop off in this area or around the lake period. it slowly drops. from 5 to maybe 10 ft. the only place i can find a great drop off is where the river channels run. its around 25-30ft there. there are hundreds of stumps and cyress trees everywhere. i guess i just need to get out there in my boat and spend a day riding around looking for nice drop offs and brush piles. i just dont know what to look for. cant figure the lake out. havent had a boat to long and have never had success in open water before, just around shallows and banks. i have alot to learn i see.

bass dont hang out in random open water with no cover do they? what all do i need to look for?

[BassinMD]

Fish the creek channel. When the water is hot the bass will be in that 20+ feet, try deep cranks, football jigs if I is rocky, Carolina rig and even Texas rig. Keep it deep and you will get into em no doubt in my mind

[cody161]

Just because you can't see structure sticking up out of the water doesn't mean there isn't structure under the water. Find deep water that rises up to a hump and has weeds, stumps, rock piles, or some sort of structure/cover and there are usually bass there.

[Lund Explorer]

santee cooper is a great bass lake. i know they have a pro circuit that comes to this lake every so often so i know there are bass out here. i have never found a drop off in this area or around the lake period. it slowly drops. from 5 to maybe 10 ft. the only place i can find a great drop off is where the river channels run. its around 25-30ft there. there are hundreds of stumps and cyress trees everywhere. i guess i just need to get out there in my boat and spend a day riding around looking for nice drop offs and brush piles. i just dont know what to look for. cant figure the lake out. havent had a boat to long and have never had success in open water before, just around shallows and banks. i have alot to learn i see.

bass dont hang out in random open water with no cover do they? what all do i need to look for?

I've never had the chance to fish that lake, but the good news is that a bass is a bass no matter where they call home.

Do your research on here about deep water fishing to understand structure, the cover on that structure, and how fish relate to it. River/Creek channels, points, islands, coves and bayous all have have their time and place. Learn what prey species are in the lake and their seasonal patterns because bass will setup close to those places. When you hit the water, your best tool is going to be a fish finder and a GPS unit (with a map card). A GPS is probably the best tool these days for searching out hotspots on new water. When you find interesting spots on your fish finder, mark a waypoint on the GPS so that you can return to it.

[PABASS]

First gene has a few videos on locating bass.

Second I agree bass love senkos the biggest problem with senkos are if you are fishing where there are no fish it won’t much matter what lure you fish with.

It looks like this is a flooded area? Newly flooded? Did I see open water in the background? Is this typically a creek that feeds into the lake?

My first approach would be forage, what forage if any can you see in the water? Shad, minnows, crawfish, frogs, gills? Are you not seeing any forage chances are bass are not around. As someone already pointed out when the water is hot = less oxygen in the water which affects shad more than bass and if bass are feeding on shad then they will move to cooler water/more oxygenated water after shad. This could mean grass/plant life, springs and deeper water. Summertime fish are tight to cover and strike zones go way down so I don’t think it’s what your using as much as are fish even around.

To cover an area fast use a spinner bait or buzzbait.. As a bank fisherman it’s hard locating fish on large lakes so I feel your pain but you have options since you have a boat and it appears open water.

[GoTakeANap]

i have a gps/fish finder now. its a hummingbird 581i DI. here is a link to it to the gps i have. http://store.humminbird.com/products/313974/581i_Combo

was wondering if the gps/fish finder i have is good enough for what im looking for. the reason i ask is, santee is a lake with thousands of stumps and brush piles everywhere. I didnt know if i needed a more advanced one to pick up fish around the structure/cover. its so much cover everywhere i would think it would be hard to find the bass. honestly it would take my entire life to fish all the stumps and structure thats out there.

ive lived here all my life. to me this is a catfish lake, but i have no problem catching catfish. i find bass fishing more exciting and would love to learn what to look for in different lakes to catch bass. thats why im here. thanks for all the post and help everyone.

also if you would purchase a better gps/fishfinder. what would you buy?

[smalljaw67]

I don't know if you tried this but if you haven't it may help. If you're throwing senkos around there and not getting bit that tells me either the fish have a really bad case of lockjaw or the area isn't holding any fish. The first thing to do after you've tried some baits without any bites is to find a creek channel, if there is no distinct channel in the area look for something different. With all the weed patches look for ones around wood and target those, also look for isolated patches of weeds that seem away from the rest by itself and finally look for some type of forage, check for bluegills, get close to shore and flip over rocks and see if there are craws and other types of minnows or shiners. When you find prey species make note of what it is and the size of the forage and try to mimic that, I fished an area that I knew had fish but I couldn't by a strike until I saw a flash in the water and then I knew, it was a certain type of minnow the fish were keying on. When fish are keying in on a specific bait they very seldom will hit anything else so pay attention to what they are possibly eating, good luck.

[GoTakeANap]

also i know the 2 main bait fish in the lake are gizzard shad and herring. have tried crankbaits that are colored just like them. no luck