Help With Clear Water Fishing

[joeyfishes]

Hello all, I have a question about fishing in ultra clear water. I got a Tarpon 120 for Christmas and have been fishing a local lake. The lake is very very clear, visibility is down to about 13 feet. There are a lot of dead tree overhangs with hundreds of small bass and occasional 7-10 pounders. I had been catching them with wacky finesse worms until last week when the water got even clearer and the fish got super skittish. I have been mostly hitting the water by noon. The spawn is about to begin here as the fish are up shallow. I was thinking about throwing something along the lines of a BBB Warmouth now. If anyone could please give me some tips, I would appreciate it. Thanks. 

[WRB]

Kind of difficult to accept that you already have late stage pre spawner's with all the cold weather Texas had recently.

Water is the surface water temps?

Forget the cruising bass you see up in shallow water, unless those bass respond to lures like a Senko.

The clearer the water the better for swimbaits. I would fish the deeper water areas near the shallow spawning bays, like major and secondary points with bluegill profile swimbaits like a Matt's hard or soft bluegill. Also make long casts with both jigs and big worms. If possible fish low light periods.

Try to get some bottom contact with the swimbaits, deep and slow works and a wake bait can also be good near the first break.

Tom

[ColdSVT]

Stealth is key!

I like to downsize and use natural colors in clear water

[Fishing Rhino]

Lunker City grubster 2 3/4", color is clear water.  They also make a Swimming Ribster which is longer, 4" and not so chubby.  We fish them on an 1/8th ounce jig head.  I fished them for the first time last fall, and the bass loved them.  You can swim them, or barely creep them along the bottom.  I've also done well with the silver flash and the Arkansas shiner.

 

They easily cast long distances.  I fish them on four and six pound fluorocarbon.  As you'd expect, the four pound test casts much further than the six.

 

 

[tatertester]

Good advice so far, light line, long casts, slow retrieve....Senkos, flukes, smaller swimbaits,suspending crankbaits are all good choices.

[Tylertut]

Like others said, light line, long cast, smaller and more natural color lures. If you can see the bass, they can see you and won't bite most of the time so it is key to keep a good distance from your target.

[A-Jay]

Fishing during low light conditions (or even at Night) helps an awful lot.

 

You may be surprised how well fishing in the dark levels the playing field.

 

A-Jay

[aceman387]

I fish super clear strip mine pits and my best two lures are a 4" wacky rigged yum dinger in green pumpkin/watermelon and yamamoto shad shape worms in the same color and shad color, texas rig them weightless and hang on.I fish from a kayak also and your kayak (motor less) is the best weapon you can have in that clear water.

[RoLo]

In crystal-clear water, there are 4 ways to degrade lure visibility:

 

>  Smaller Lures

>  Translucent or Transparent Lures 

>  Faster Retrieve Speed

>  Low-Light Periods  (dawn - overcast - windy - dusk - nighttime)

 

Roger

[Th1317]

sounds like youre fishing lady bird lake. youre best friend there is going to be a lipless crank. find patches of hydrilla with that and once you start finding fish slow down with a texas rigged bait, preferably something in a crawfish pattern. there's a spot in barton springs creek that sounds very mch like the situation you are descrbing, what with the many bass stacked up in some laydowns. like people are saying, get some distance, and throw some small jigs/blugill swimbaits.

 

I had a alot of succes yesterday throwing a deep diving in between the two islands past south congress, also.

[Th1317]

Kind of difficult to accept that you already have late stage pre spawner's with all the cold weather Texas had recently.

Water is the surface water temps?

Forget the cruising bass you see up in shallow water, unless those bass respond to lures like a Senko.

The clearer the water the better for swimbaits. I would fish the deeper water areas near the shallow spawning bays, like major and secondary points with bluegill profile swimbaits like a Matt's hard or soft bluegill. Also make long casts with both jigs and big worms. If possible fish low light periods.

Try to get some bottom contact with the swimbaits, deep and slow works and a wake bait can also be good near the first break.

Tom

 

 

 

 

some of the lakes around the austin area are warming up into the high 60's mid-day. we have a couple with warmwater springs feeding them and a few powerplant lakes. we'll start seeing fish on beds within a month here.

[WRB]

Where I Ilive and bass fish the water clarity is about equal to a swimming pool for about 8 months. During the summer the water sport activity tends to stir up some bank errosion and algae blooms will lower the water clarity to about 8 to 10 feet, still very clear.

Bass tend to spawn in 6' to 15' of water here due to boat and fishing pressure, rarely will adult size bass move up into 3' of water to spawn, 6' to 8' being the average.

Going with small lures may seem logical, however small size interest juvenile size bass more than larger adults. Since these bass are use to boats they learn to avoid them, long cast become a standard practice, low light periods and light rain days are preferred, nights would ideal.

Going ultra light with small lures doesn't always fill the bill.

Tom

PS, power plant lakes are a wild card.

[ced]

If you can see the fish they can more likely than not see you.

[Crestliner2008]

As has already been suggested, focus on stealth. Your approach to the area you are targeting is paramount. Coast in with your engine AND electronics OFF. Relax....have a cup of coffee. Then pick up a drop shot spinning rod and pitch to the particular break or structure where you know fish are probably locating around. Do not move the drop shot a lot. Let it sit there - in their faces - with only the lightest water current applying action to your plastic worm. I'd recommend no more than 6# test fluoro for your main line. And I've even gone down to 4# test on really fish finicky days. If you can't catch 'em with this approach, I seriously doubt that anyone would do better.

[ClackerBuzz]

yup you'll be amazed how far you can cast 4lb test on a noodle rod.  i only have one rod with 4#. my other 3 finesse rods have 6 lb and i change out to an 8 lb leader when needed (with braid as mainline).

this is all great advice so the only thing i'll add is working ur lure on slack line ie do not keep constant tension on it. let the line lay on the bottom of the lake in between lure movement.

it seems like clear water/skittish fish are far more sensitive to a taut line. in this situation it's better to error on too much slack in ur line so keep a bow. believe it or not you'll still feel the bite. now if you gut hook 3 fish in a row make adjustments (and use this http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/12981-how-do-i-remove-a-hook-a-bass-has-swallowed/page-2)

 

watch Kriet work his shaky on slack line.  watch the video's first with sound and then watch a second time with the mute on focusing on just the action of rod tip (i believe that was Flukes great suggestion).

 

Bobby does it with his jigs at 2:28: