Need Help!

[rowyourboat]

my local lake is fairly small - about 1000 acres. It is a lowland reservior. It has lots of standing timber in a few of the creek arms. water temp is in the mid to upper 50's and is muddy.

 

I've been our twice and I have only caught 1 fish. it was shallow on a spinnerbait.

 

Do you guys have any tips or suggestions? the lake does not have grass. mustly just standing timber, laydowns, rocks, stumps, and a little rip rap.

 

thanks guys

[WIGuide]

Try fishing the creek arms and then onto the flat in between there and the bank. Start at the main lake end and work you way towards the back doing this. You should run across them sooner or later. Also, be sure you are fishing S..L..O..W unless the fish tell you otherwise.

[Bassun]

I'm no pro so take this opinion and do with it what you will...

 

Skipping the basic prespawn / spawn patterns - I would do a couple things.  First if you have electronics, spend some time just looking at the lake bed - two days, 1 fish - I'd spend some time learning the layout before I ever cast another bait.  *(If the lake is mapped, even better.  I find map study to be hugely important on a new body of water.)

 

Find the different types of structure, different bottom compositions, creek edges, drop offs, humps etc. and look for some signs of life.  If you find a ledge which looks like hard rock on the bottom, and small chunk rock or pea gravel with some obvious connections immediately one would think thats a great spot this time of year; but if you graph it and there's nothing there don't waste a lot of time fishing where we "think" the fish should be.  Move on and actually find signs of fish.

 

Secondly, if its muddy you are really going to need to wake up the fish.  When I get in muddy water I think sound over sight, and slow over speed.  Granted the fish can probably see better then you expect, and obviously have great senses beyond their sight - if they can't see what they are feeding on, it's going to be more of a challenge.  I personally go big and dark.  Black and blue spinnerbait with an oversized colorado blade for example.  Dark jigs with big trailers and rattles.  I want the fish to be able to easily feel where my bait is.  I've also decided that the more stain or mud there is, the less important cover and structure becomes.  I don't focus on getting into the heart of a brush pile like I would in more clear conditions, instead I have better luck working "near" big cover.

 

Lastly, if you happen to find any areas where you have clear water feeding in and you get a distinct "mud wall" I would spend a lot of time working that area.  I think in muddy conditions the bass (and other predatory fish) begin to use the muddy water as cover when there is clear water near by.  They will hang back in the "mud" and ambush into the clear water.  I've not had many huge fish do this, but decent numbers of decent sized fish seem to.  And they always seem to restack very quickly so you can hit the same place a few times in a day and sometimes have good success each time.  I've seen musky come out of the mud after caught bass when a feeder stream is dumping muddy water into a clear river.  So if your lake has pike / musky keep an eye open on the fight.

 

Oh, and keep in mind -- a bad day fishing is till better than a good day at work!

 

Tight lines!