Fishing Largemouth Question

[trell9998]

Ok this is kinda difficult question to explain, i live on a small lake and have been fishing it this year few times and havent had any luck. The lake has concrete rock wall around it, kinda to make it look appealing to home buyers i guess. What would be the best approach/lure to catching these dang ole bass. Ive had luck in the past with rubber worm but this year no bites on it. Ive used spinnerbait, no luck. Yesterday evening we tried live bait and caught just one. Im thinking we dont have enough cover in the lake, there are no down trees, no bushes no nothing. What do you guys think?? You can kinda see what im talking about in the picture, and no that isnt me fishing haha. Its like that all the way around and its about 4.5 acres.

[OCdockskipper]

I call these type of lakes "Development Lakes", since they are built to enhance a housing development.  From the picture, yours seems to fit the profile: shallow, bowl shaped, very little or no emergent vegetation, cement borders, aerators to eliminate stagnation.  Here are a few tips from my experience about where to fish:

1. Often that concrete border has been undercut by catfish & carp rooting around wherever it ends in the water (sometimes out 5 or 10 feet out from the shore).  That becomes home for baitfish and if the undercut is deep enough for the bass themselves.  The bass will either hide out under it or swim around the perimeter looking to flush out baitfish.
    
2. I see a couple of small docks and/or paddleboats on the water.  Bass being bass, they will hide under them when the sun its out.  The less used the dock/paddleboat, the better, unless it belongs to someone who feeds the wildlife.  The bread thrown to ducks & geese attract bluegill, who attract the bass.
    
3. If there are any semi-serious bass fishermen on the lake, trust me, there is a sunken Christmas tree or two some place.

 

As far as lures techniques, my main recommendation would be to downsize & slow down.  Be it topwater, crankbait, swimbait or jig, go with the smaller versions (Zara puppy instead of a full sized spook, 4" senko instead of 5", etc).  There will be days when they won't chase moving lures, but will still eat a finesse jig or smaller worm all day long.  Skip under the docks with a wacky rigged senko, that is something grandpa in the picture has never done.  If you really want to keep it simple, just use a Z-Man TRD (Neg rig) all day long - these lakes are a perfect match to it.  The fish will follow seasonal patterns, just in miniature and they kind of know the baitfish don't have many places to hide or run away to.

Finally, if you have access to one of those paddleboats, use it.  They really aren't too tough to fish from, will give access to the entire lake & you can even mount a Hummin'bird portable depthfinder on it to figure out where those sunken Christmas trees are.

[trell9998]

Awesome information, the above pic is kinda old, we do have 1 or 2 paddleboats and a canoe that sits in the lake right now and i have access to our service jon boat that i can fish from, just havent. The lake itself, right where the guy is fishing is where we caught one of the biggest bass we have seen out of there so far and its only 2.5/3 ft right out in front of him about 20 ft out then goes to about 4-5ft. Most of the middle is 5-6ft. If you look way to the end there is a small fountain, on that end in that corner is the deepest part of the lake and its like 9-10ft. The bass we caught yesterday was right by a paddleboat. There was 1 small christmas tree in the lake but i think it was snagged by someone and pulled out. We had a turtle problem which we just pulled a big snapper out of the lake couple weeks ago. So all in all, there are couple small boats we can fish near, and we have a dock that goes to our pool that we can cast under. On one side of the pool house there is grass area with willow trees overhanging the lake which i have caught a few there but nothing this year yet. Thanks for the advice, really appreciate it.

[OCdockskipper]

You are welcome, keep us updated as you figure them out.

[Mr. Aquarium]

fish at night!  bass will be much easier to catch at a place with little structure. i have a pond tough bass fishing during the day but if you fish at night my catch rate will increase.  the bass feel safer and will eat low light conditions. 

[J BASS]

I would use a flipping stick and flip the wall staying fur enough away not to be detected...Shaded areas during correct light may also play into effect...Been there done it

[Darren.]

Welcome aboard!

Good answers above. Night, under
paddleboats, etc., during day, or 
in shade of the buildings, if that 
happens there...

Also agree with downsizing...and 
slowing down your presentation.

Try a mojo rig with a small, floating
worm/minnow and give it a few 
twitches as you slowly bring it in...

Ans so on....

[roadwarrior]

It doesn't sound promising to me, I would find somewhere else to fish.

 

[trell9998]

Yeah, we went out in just little jon boat and caught about 4 right off the bank which was at night, hooked one out in the middle but was moving the boat at the same time and lost it. Its just hard to just not fish it when you live right here haha. Ill keep at it, mostly at night and see what happens, Thanks for all the input and information, im by far no pro, but been thinking about getting in a tournament just for the experience, but that will be little later on down the road.

[trell9998]

On 6/10/2016 at 10:18 AM, roadwarrior said:

It doesn't sound promising to me, I would find somewhere else to fish.

 

We have caught plenty out of here and throw them back, i just think they are swimming deep and we fishing the bank, gonna get a crankbait to fish deep.

[Nashua Nev]

my first thought , full moon at midnight to 1 am , 3 to 4 inch top water brokentail jitterbug in black fished slow.    Rage structure bugs and craws, try a few different colors dark and light.   fish them slow, twitch them off the bottom.  i fish them weightless a lot.  give them plenety of time to sink.  if you have a boat fish parallel to the bank 5 feet out , 10 feet out 15 feet out 20 feet out, especially if you can find a rock or ledge area.     Christmas is coming ,  cinder blocks tied to a few Christmas trees dropped in 12 to 15 or so feet of water will be found by some bass if there are any.  tie them in the middle of the tree so they lay down not stand up.....   structure , drops , inlets and outlets ,are there any aeration spots?    start feeding some fish off the beaten path area if there is one.   a place where it is a little quieter.    put in the time , if they are there you will find them.   are there bait fish?