I Need Everyone's Opinion Or I'm Screwed!

[RMcDuffee726]

Alright guys, I always go to you in my toughest situations so don't let me down now!  In New Hampshire the Fall Bite is on without a doubt, but I ran into a strange occurrence today and I'm screwed.  I literally don't have any idea what to do without all of your help.  Story time; I go to this pond, which is shaped like a horseshoe (Everybody envision a horseshoe).  Now a horseshoe has two ends to it, everybody get that? Great.  So imagine you're fishing a horseshoe pond and the two ends of the horseshoe are about 13-15 ft in depth.  The rest of the pond is about 5-6 ft in depth at the most.  So essentially I'm dealing with a pond that is crazy shallow besides two very noticeable pockets, and by the way the water is ultra clear.  Today I went fishing (10/10/15), but yesterday (10/9/15) New Hampshire got wrecked with very cold weather and a ton of rain.  When I hit the water I instantly assume the bass would have pulled out to the deeper two pockets of the pond due to the freezing cold weather and rain that occurred on (10/9/15).  I never got a bite, and I threw everything (techniques include) in those pockets.  I hit every technique as hard as I could and didn't get bit once.  I also never saw a single fish anywhere in the pond, even in the shallows.  My main question to you is "what are the fishing doing?"  The pond literally has two deep pockets and that is it.  How could I have not seen any fish anywhere shallow, yet catch nothing deep either.  I'm truly dumbfounded.  I'm curious to all your opinions on what fish would do in a super shallow pond when there is a severe cold day before fishing.  I can't even fathom it.  They can't truly go deep and "transition" as many bass pros would say.  I just need some guidance because I have come across this situation before and I might as well just get off the water because I'm useless in these scenarios.

[stk]

I'll throw in my two cents. The area I am in is in northern IL and the fall bite is on there as well. We had a cold front about a couple of weeks ago that came through and dropped the lake temp down about ten degrees from mid seventies to mid sixties. I have found success early in the morning at first light using spinner baits or top water and during the mid afternoon after the sun has come out and warmed up the water a little bit with cranks, jigs and rattle traps.

Cold fronts are tough. A jay had posted a great video on cold water bass fishing using blade baits. I can't wait to give them a try.

[Bluebasser86]

Any idea what your water temps were before and after the rain? An extreme water temp change can shut them down completely for a day or two to the point that you almost literally have to hit them on the nose with a bait. I'll bet a suspending jerkbait with long pauses would trick a couple fish still. Otherwise, you would probably be best off staying home and getting your gear ready for once the weather calms down a little and the fish get use to the new water temp. I'll bet if you'd gone right before that front came through you would have whacked them though. 

[Tennessee Bass]

Any idea what your water temps were before and after the rain? An extreme water temp change can shut them down completely for a day or two to the point that you almost literally have to hit them on the nose with a bait. I'll bet a suspending jerkbait with long pauses would trick a couple fish still. Otherwise, you would probably be best off staying home and getting your gear ready for once the weather calms down a little and the fish get use to the new water temp. I'll bet if you'd gone right before that front came through you would have whacked them though. 

Couldn't have said it better. Same thing happened to me about a week ago. There was a big water temp change and I fished for hours and no bites. Wait for the temps to stabilize and try again. Good luck

[A-Jay]

Cold front bites are tough - you're young.  You'll learn that.

 

The forecast for your area looks promising.  A warming trend is on the way.  This should help. 

Warm with a west wind Tuesday - looks like the best of the next three days but warming is always better than cooling now so get out when you can. 

Try a drop shot (with a rage craw).  Lighter line Helps with your clear water. 

 

Also any baits that you have confidence in that worked in the spring usually work in the fall; in the same places too.

 

Good Luck

 

A-Jay

[WRB]

KVD can't always catch bass or anyone else when the bass are not biting. The more experience you have allows you to try presentations or lures that have worked in the past under similar conditions, that doesn't always work.

It's my belief that bass have a daily routine based on living in thier environment, in your situation it's a horseshoe shaped pond. The bass have about 5 basic moods ranging from being very active, active, neutral, inactive and very inactive, these moods change throughout the day. If the basses environment has a big change, that directly affects their routine and changes their behavior. Change can be positive increasing activity or negative decreasing activity to very inactive.

It's easy to catch active bass, impossible to catch inactive bass, timing is just as important as location.

Tom

PS, search "Cosmic Clock and Behavior".

[Canyon explorer]

RMc~

 

There are times when the fish just turn off. The Good News is it can be predictable especially when there is cause e.g fronts, storms, turnover ect.. Even then I would stick with it, Concentrate on non aggressive patterns e.g.. Vision 110's slow jerked  half way down, small baits e.g. Baby Brush Hogs, finesse worms on drop shot rigs. Even if you don,t catch  many fish the experience gained fishing tough water will pay off. I have picked up a  quite a few Federation tournament checks with one fish.

[Catch and Grease]

Do you normally catch much at the pond? Can't catch bass at a pond with no fish haha

[RMcDuffee726]

Do you normally catch much at the pond? Can't catch bass at a pond with no fish haha

I have got my PB from this pond, so it was very interesting.

[blckshirt98]

The day after it rains has always been tough for me.  I've had the most 0 fish days on either the day after a heavy rain, or, a bright clear 90+ degree zero wind day.  I've learned to just stay home and clean/organize tackle and do stuff around the house on those days.

[Jaw1]

I believe you learn more on the hard day's than the easy ones. When the fish are biting and your able to put a pattern together it's like connecting the dots, but when's it's tough it makes you think differently and concentrate more plus when it's tough I experiment with techniques that I don't usually fish so I don't waste time learning them when the bite is on.

[kcdinkerz]

Aliens I tells you! Lol I hate cold front fishing to, similar situations I like to work the bottom, then a few feet off the bottom. After that I usually throw something with a slow fall that I can work up and down the water column. Most of the time its a shakey head, drop shot, then wacky. Unless the deep parts in that pond is a straight drop I'd try fishing across the slope starting at the shallow end and work my way down. Run a crankbait across that and try to bump the slope. Have patience and good luck to you.

[Choporoz]

I won't argue with anything said above.   But, I'm curious about the 'middle, shallow' parts.  The fact that you didn't see fish there doesn't mean there weren't any.  I was on a small lake/big pond on Saturday after a 'dramatic' cold front.  By far, the best bite was in the shallowest parts - using lipless cranks.  Lake is very clear, but I only 'saw' two legal fish swimming around.  Caught a bunch of invisible ones, though.

[RMcDuffee726]

I won't argue with anything said above.   But, I'm curious about the 'middle, shallow' parts.  The fact that you didn't see fish there doesn't mean there weren't any.  I was on a small lake/big pond on Saturday after a 'dramatic' cold front.  By far, the best bite was in the shallowest parts - using lipless cranks.  Lake is very clear, but I only 'saw' two legal fish swimming around.  Caught a bunch of invisible ones, though.

Well I was standing in my Kayak with polarized sunglasses and literally could see the whole pond directly to the bottom, and didn't see a single fish.  That is why I assumed they were in the deeper parts of the pond, but was wrong I guess.

[everythingthatswims]

Ponds are turning over in my area currently. Fish are acting very weird, even Ned couldn't catch them, cavitron caught one dink. Most fish are just sunning themselves and will spook very easily. I don't know if that's what could be happening to you, typically the water gets cloudy and that doesn't sound like the case for you

[fish stick]

Try another pond, or take up trout fishing... problem solved, lol. Good luck