How to fish this spot?

[kash1]

I have a spot I have been trying to figure out the best way to fish it and what type of baits to use. This is on a Canadian Shield Lake with a maximum depth of 147 foot. The lake has a lot of natural food in it an is common to see each fish on your locator with it's own bait ball. The water to me is tea colored and fairly good visibility Lots of rocks in the lake with a sand and silt bottom for most parts once away from the shore lines.

Now here is the spot: Imagine an upside down "U". This represents looking down an underwater ridge line. The top of the ridge is about 16 foot wide and about 300 yards long out in the middle of a large bay. One end of the ridge is about 5 foot under water and the other end is about 13 foot under water. On the LEFT SIDE it drop to 35-65 foot almost straight down and is rocky with large rocks some almost boulders. On the right side it gradually drops to 26 foot over a 100 foot spread.

My question would be "how to fish the left side drop off of this ridge to keep a bait as close as possible? Sometime ago I was at a Bass Pro Shop and was looking at their big fish display and I noticed that the Biggest Bass help up tight to the face of the drop any place there was any kind of indentation. Those are what I'm after. This spot also tends to hold large northern pike as well as Bass. Thanks

[Turkey sandwich]

I'm not having the easiest time building a mental picture, but I'm assuming it's primarily smallmouth you're after and that your question has to do mostly with keeping your bait in the strike zone the longest.  If that is the case, I'd focus on casting jigs, tubes, t-rigs, drop shots, etc from shallow to deep, making notes of any cover and the depth I'm catching fish off of.  

 

If you you have a picture or a topo map, I can probably be more specific.  

 

Also, welcome to the forum!

[lbriggs]

Clear water-try a slow sinking jerkbait that has a deep dive. Natural colored jigs and trailers, maybe a silver blade bait bounced slowly down those large rocks. A dropshotted trick worm or tube may do the trick. Good luck.

[kash1]

Thanks guys. What makes this area so hard to fish is the nature of the shear drop as you come off of it. If I park my boat so that off one side of it your fishing in 5' of water and if you drop a line off the other side of the boat you could be in 50-60 foot of water. Almost straight down. My biggest smallie from that spot has been 7.12lbs and I have seen bigger ones lost to the pike there. The only thing I can think of doing now is dropping anchor off both ends of the boat and try fishing parallel to the ridge line.

  Beyond what depth would you suggest NOT FISHING FOR SMALLIES so as to not blow them up? I will also  look into getting some sinking jerk baits that can get down there. Tubes I have but don't use them that often but will give them more of a try this time.

[Hurricane]

I love the Rapala DT crank bait series... I would start off throwing a DT6 for the hell of it..

[papajoe222]

It would help to know the depth yo plan on targeting, but I'll attempt a general answer that you can adjust to conditions. 

Casting parallel to the drop with a crank that is tuned to run either slightly left or right (depending on which way you're facing) will keep it close to the drop, or banging into it . This is what I believe you want.  Changing to cranks with different running depths will allow you to cover depths down to about 20ft.  

Walking a jig down a steep drop or up it,  is a task that even the best anglers find extremely difficult.  If there is enough taper to successfully accomplish it, that would be the way to approach depths below what a crank can reach. 

The deepest I've ever caught a bass was 30ft. so I couldn't comment on your concerns over catching deep fish. 

[S. Sass]

Dead stick a neutral weight jerkbait as papajoe222 mentioned to do with crank baits might work. But I also don't fish deeper than 30-40 ft. so no idea after that.