Awful Day Of Practice At A New Lake. I Need Help And Luck.

[prjavelin]

I went fishing a new lake today. I will be fishing a tournament on it this weekend. My home lake is a highland reservoir that has been here since 1949 so you can imagine that it has cover in the shores and silt on the bottom making a couple of the areas flats. I know this lake pretty well and im capable on it. 

 

This new(has been here less than 10 years) lake is an extreme example of a Highland reservoir. It has a couple walls where the water goes from 0-40 feet who knows if more in a one foot step. it has almost no cover, very little structure, its extremely clear, almost all of the shores are rocky, It has only one river going into it, it has a huge population of undersize fish(10 and 11 inchers). The problem with the lake is so much that Natural resources DEPT removed 2000 undersize bass from it and sent them to another lake. Unfortunately it was done by electrofishing which ive heard stuns not only the fish but the bite for a long time. This happened 4 days ago. It has a lot of bass jumping around since the locals say the shad stays close to the dam in the surface. Because of this fishing in the river is kinda poor. 

 

The positive! It has laydowns, stumps and some trees are still standing inside the water, well the sticks that made the trees. these trees are not very abundant though. One area the size of a football field has 3 laydowns. Then a lot of bare shore and when you get back to the area with dirt you get a couple. I located a LOT of fish in a cove. There are a lot of trees there. The problem is  most are 11 inchers with one 14 incher there that I scared with my boat and noise. 

 

some of this information has been given to me by my friend, who is the guy that taught me to use the killer slider head technique. The rest is my observations. 

 

so today I had a bad bad day. Tough bite, rain pouring over me. I caught 3 fish, one was exactly 12 inches maybe less, the other two were 11 inchers. I didnt fish for long because the rains were tough on me. I made a plan for the tournament and I want your opinions!

 

the plan!

 

mainly slider head fishing, working the laydowns, then if they dont bite bumping a squarebill on the trees and somehow introduce drop shot(i suck at it) and sharey heads where the shores arent steep and in places where Ive been bit.

 

what do you guys think? 

[PABASS]

Why not try a jig in the laydowns and pick those tree apart?  Depending on the day/cloud cover I would use a pop-r and or buzzbait to get the active fish in the morning.

[K_Mac]

I am guessing you are in summer season? If so, do not be afraid of the steeper rocky drops into the channel. Often there are shelves on them that hold fish, sometimes deeper than expected. A Trickworm on a shakyhead,  or a football jig and craw can produce well in those spots. Sometimes a wacky jig and Senko/knock-off will also produce. Good Luck!

[brgbassmaster]

Just curious but have you tried peacock bass fishing there in puerto rico? I was just looking on google about fishing over there and it seems that theres awesome peacock bass fishing.

[prjavelin]

theres awesome peacock bass fishing in the northwest in a reservoir called Guajataca. Also in the lakes close to the metro area theres good peacock fishing. I live in the southwest and the reservoirs in this area are great Spotted bass fisheries.