Heavily Pressured Bass

[livetofish28]

I live very close to a very heavily pressured lake in Va and the bass arn't hitting anything anymore any lure ideas?

[Raul]

Instead of lookig for new baits start by fishing the same baits you have in a different manner, I´ve been bass fishing for more than 3 decades, I have hundreds of cranks, spinnerbaits, pounds & pounds of soft plastics, well, I end up fishing the same baits I´ve always used and ended up with hundreds of baits that have never touched the water, why ? cuz it ain´t the wand but the magician where the magic is. They aren´t hitting ? ----> change the presentation.

[Bluebasser86]

http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/13845-guaranteed-to-catch-bass/

[ClackerBuzz]

Of course everyone associates fall fishing with reaction baits. Problem is the bite can go stone cold during transition in unpressured water let alone hightly pressured. I'd go w/ smaller baits, lighter weights, soft plastics on the bottom, slower presentation (fish very slow but move often to cover fresh/new water), lighter line, spinning gear. good luck

[livetofish28]

I've fished everything in my tackle box numerous times even the classic rooster tail and still nothing. The senko hasn't even produced and that's in my panic box. The fish seem to have disappeared. Nothing works anymore.

[bkohlman]

Try out the good ole rooster tail.....ya never know!

[CoBass]

Of course everyone associates fall fishing with reaction baits. Problem is the bite can go stone cold during transition in unpressured water let alone hightly pressured. I'd go w/ smaller baits, lighter weights, soft plastics on the bottom, slower presentation (fish very slow but move often to cover fresh/new water), lighter line, spinning gear. good luck

This is definitely worth a try. A buddy of mine has access to a private pond that gets very little pressure. Every time we've gone out there we were able to have 30-40 fish days throwing bigger baits. Last time out we couldn't hardly buy a bite on the same baits that had been so productive for us on previous trips. Just for kicks I started throwing a three inch curly tailed grub on a 1/8 oz jig head on lighter spinning gear and immediately started catching fish in the 3-4 lb range. We had six people on three boats out there and after I boated my fifth fish in about twenty minutes everybody was tying on three inch grubs and catching fish. Sometimes those tiny little easy to catch meals that require very little effort on their part are exactly what bass are looking for.

[WRB]

Let's define heavy fishing pressure; small lakes less than 2500 acres that receive several hundred tournament bass clud and derby anglers every weekend year around and define SoCal bass fishing.

High pressured bass see every lure several times during the life time and most are caught several times.

So how do you complete with all the other skilled bass angers and catch these bass consistantly?

Finesse fishing was created in SoCal due to this problem. Finesse can be described as presenting a lure precisely or presenting a smaller lure on lighter line precisely. The answer to your problem is learning how to finesse fish when the bass are not active feeding. To be successful you need to learn where to fish during each seasonal period.

Tom

[Kachok]

For heavily fished waters I like trying something that they have not seen before, weightless lizards, wacky worms and soft jerkbaits are great, If all else fails a live bluegill SLOW jigged on bottom is dang near failproof.

[scaleface]

Personally ,I try to keep my baits natural looking on a heavily fished reservoir. No loud colors, or rattles. By September the fish have lockjaw . Spinnerbaits , for instance. I dont necessarily go light weight, because I still want them to drop but I will go with dull , or clear skirts with flake and a small blade. No braids. Braids are easy for fish to detect. I stick with mono. Green line camouflages well in my water. Im not convinced that floro is invisible. I can see it just as plain as mono in an aquarium. Long cast help. If you dont need it, turn off the sonar. Try to be stealthy.Fish still have to eat.

[scaleface]

One more thing. If catching heavily pressured bass was easy, Id be a Pro fisherman. Bass are ridiculously easy to catch,fishing pressure is a game changer. Try to be creative, think outside the box. Learn to enjoy the sport even if you are not catching fish. The bites will come.

[merc1997]

I've fished everything in my tackle box numerous times even the classic rooster tail and still nothing. The senko hasn't even produced and that's in my panic box. The fish seem to have disappeared. Nothing works anymore.

if you are fishing right now, the first thing i might ask is, "what is the water temp"? it could be that your particular lake is going through fall turnover. when this happens, fishing is very difficult for about two weeks normally. also, if your lake has a good population of shad, many bass are offshore, suspended, and not on the bottom or bank. there are not any secret baits. the same basic tools we have always had will always catch fish. the key is to be fishing where the fish are first. then we must be fishing the right depth at the right speed to make the bass strike.

bo

[TNBassin']

I've been fishing a red eye shad in chartreuse bait fish and have been having good luck. Went yesterday, and nothing I tried worked. Fishing has been frustrating this year.

[LipRipper_562]

I use a heavy set up . a shimano calcutta on a okuma 7'11 big bait rod to throw my hudds and I use 65lb spiderwire invisibraid.... I live in southern california so high pressure is an everyday thing. But the big baits NEVER FAIL at least for me.but it not the lures its the presentation.

[Nitrofreak]

Lake Anna ?

Looks like Sturgeon Creek in the background.

[Silas]

Down here in the bayous:

3 inch Yum Dinger....weightless wacky rigged on 6# flouro. (3 inch hard to come by) the slow sinking bait can be hard on impatient fishermen.

4.5" Squirrel tailed worm on 1/8 oz shakey head....6-8# flouro.

Both of those presentations work well in heavily fished waters.

[Jim_M]

Spoons.

[livetofish28]

Lake Anna ?

Looks like Sturgeon Creek in the background.

Ya it is how did u know that was the weigh in of my last tournament

[BirdNestBen]

get a spinning rod with 6 to 8 lb. flurocarbon.... try a dropshot rig with either a zoom trick worm or a zoom finesse worm in watermelon or red colors... can't fish it too slooooooooooooooooowwwww...

[PABASS]

My last outing was at a pond it was my fist time at this pond, never seen it before. Water was down over 6 feet, they drained it for some unknown reason. It was a cold cloudy morning and I needed to locate the bass, I went for a buzzbait because I know that this lure will tell me where the bass are and how active they are. It was a decent sized pond maybe the same size as a football field so the fish could be holding anywhere. I caught a few here and there and finally keyed in on the point that came out into a channel that feed into the other side of the pond, the wind was blowing perfectly down this channel up against this point and the fish all keyed on this. Caught 7 fish on that buzzbait and I saw what they were doing and how they wanted the bait, doing this(adapting to what fish want) has made me such a better fisherman give the bass what they want, it amazes me how simple an idea this is and when you implement it, the payoff is big. So they wanted the buzzbait slow almost underwater. I was thinking that there is a better bait, maybe a spinner bait, but the water was clear and I could see a grassy bottom maybe 3-5’ down, so I thought crankbait, fairly slow and holly crap, 35 fish in less than two hours, my first 10 cast I caught 10 fish and that’s a record for me, it was crazy. I did catch a few bass outside of this zone but the bulk of my bass where in a 20 foot zone, and I was able to watch 40% of my bites, it was such a cool learning experience that I will never forget. The bass were all decent size for this pond one less than a pound most in the 1.5-2.5 pound range, thank you KVD 1.0 sexy shad..

The point is, locate, adapt to what the fish want and have fun, to me the hardest part of fishing from a bank is locating those fish..

[Nitrofreak]

Ya it is how did u know that was the weigh in of my last tournament

Ha Ha , I have spent a lot of time there in the past, I know how you feel about that ol' girl been there done that !!!

Lake Anna is one ol' girl that I have a love/hate relationship with, no matter how much time you put in there it's never enough, one hint that I will give you is you have to keep in mind the power plant there, on the public side of that lake there is a reverse flow of water, if you are spending all of your time below the 208 bridge, the warm waters there will be acceptional for bass to roam, I have seen the thermocline be as deep as 30 feet in the middle of winter, and o2 rich water all the way back up to the nuke plant before, if you fish the lower part of the lake they will usually be grouped up and you will just have to find them, that can be a pain !!!

Where abouts do you concentrate your fishing if I may ask? I am not looking for specifics nor GPS locations, you give me a general idea and I will know where you are fishing.

If you wish to go over specifics then shoot me a PM.

I will say this for her, you really need to SLOW DOWN, I know tournament fishing there and I have been in your shoes, most all of the hot spots are run over and over and over again before you get there, but keep this in mind, we could see KVD fish a brush pile, then Denny then Ike then Paul, all of them will catch a fish or two because they all fish differently, you have to be different as well, I have fished a rock pile in the arm of Anna river just before you go under the bridge to make the left into Christopher Run, I fished the old creek bed while someone fished that rock pile for 30 minutes, and right as he was leaving and I was picking up my trolling motor to head over there another angler came in and fished it he was there almost 15 minutes before leaving, I went there with a T-rigged lizard and just casted to the side of that pile and waited for over a minute before I moved my bait, I pulled not one but two 4lb'ers off of that pile in under 5 minutes, they are there and they are very very easily spooked, they will take their time to test a bait.

Slow down when you fish under docks, look for the oldest docks you can find close to deeper water access, fish the grass flats at the splits with a drop shot, 15 to 20 feet is where you will have your best luck.

[Nitrofreak]

Lots of really good advice guy's, i'm really glad to be a part of this site, I love seeing what works for everybody across this nation of ours !!!