Favorite Clear Water Baits?

[WRB]

FYI, the 19 lb bass was caught near Alder point on a black-blue jig w/GYCB twin tail black blue flake grub. Kayaks are allowed on Chabot and would be your best bet to bass fish from  unless you rent a electric powered boat.

Trout anglers won't be happy if they are bait fishing and you snag their line! 

Tom

PS, buy a fishing kayak if you are serious about fishing this lake.

[papajoe222]

Welcome'

I also fish a lot of clear water lakes, a couple of which I can see bottom in 15ft. I shy away from hard baits and stick with small, soft plastic baits in natural colors.  I'm a tube freak when it comes to soft plastics and a 2- 3in. tube in pearl or smoke with pepper flakes does well on most of those lakes.  For hard baits, as already mentioned, the fish can see your bait from farther away and have more time to look it over. Downsizing and speeding up your retrieve helps to put you on more level playing field.

[Mr Swim Jig]

Personally I like to fish swim jigs and spinner baits in clear water as well as tubes and creature style baits.

[WI_Angler1989]

13 minutes ago, Mr Swim Jig said:

Personally I like to fish swim jigs and spinner baits in clear water as well as tubes and creature style baits.

 

I guessed you may like swim jigs ;D

[BronzeChaser]

I put a lot of time in on clear water fisheries. One body of water in particular is extremely clear and deep, inhabited by only smallmouth, pickerel, and baitfish. You can see boulders and logs on the bottom in 25' of water. My favorites are usually finesse presentations. Ned rig, wacky/ neko rig, drop shot, shaky head. For hard baits a walking bait and a spybait in natural colors get the most bites for me. Long cats and light line are important, but being stealthy (no splashing/ being noisy, etc.) is importanter.

[ClackerBuzz]

you got some great advice here.

 

I fish a bear of a clear lake and the lure is only part of the equation. equally important are:  casting distance, line size, wind chop and dam draw/water flow.

 

longer casts flat out catch more fish.  needle sharp/lighter wire hooks allow for much better hookups.

 

4-6lb line is a must on bluebird calm days with little water flow.  Ned rig, small tube or 4" drop shot are 'big lures' on these days.  i usually only break out standard size bass lures w/10-15lb line with clouds, wind chop on surface, rain or 24-48hrs after a storm is pushing fresh water into the system. 

the last key is boat position.  learn to always use cover as a screen to hide behind.  position behind points (both above and below water points), weed beds, intersections, lily pads, dams, chunk rock 'corners' etc.  good casting angles while hiding behind objects will be rewarded.

 

clear water fishing becomes progressively harder as the body of water gets smaller and more shallow.  whereas bass are far less shy in clear water on a 200,000+ acre lake with constant 10-20 mph winds and 1-2 ft waves.  in those conditions you can vertical drop shot them in 20ft of clear water. small and very stable 50 acre lakes with little water flow and glassy calm conditions will test your patience and requires major adjustments.

 

 

[bma3]

3 hours ago, BronzeChaser said:

I put a lot of time in on clear water fisheries. One body of water in particular is extremely clear and deep, inhabited by only smallmouth, pickerel, and baitfish. You can see boulders and logs on the bottom in 25' of water. My favorites are usually finesse presentations. Ned rig, wacky/ neko rig, drop shot, shaky head. For hard baits a walking bait and a spybait in natural colors get the most bites for me. Long cats and light line are important, but being stealthy (no splashing/ being noisy, etc.) is importanter.

 

Lol. Love the word choice - "Importanter". Thanks for the help!

[Cgolf]

On January 31, 2017 at 8:41 PM, everythingthatswims said:

People on here will tell you that bass do not care if braid is directly attached to the bait even in clear water. I would love to take them on some of the bodies of water that I fish so they can show me that.

 

I would actually take you on, my current clear water lake has visibility 10-15 feet depending on the year and I tried both fireline and fireline with a 6 foot flouro leader with a swim senko on a slider head that had to sit dead for 5 seconds and the catch rate was the same. This was N WI bass, so maybe that helps me out a bit. Many years ago I used to pier fish Geneva Lake a lot and not knowing any better would catch fish on Trilene solar XT. Geneva is the clearest lake I have seen to date, gin comes to mind. Sometimes I think we give the fish too much credit, but I will admit that I generally look for more active fish, so my presentations may be on the quicker side than others. 

 

For soft baits, colors are smoke red or purple in sun and flat water and water red or green pumpkin with overcast skies and choppy water with any sun conditions. The baits are pretty simple lots of tubes and grubs, Anglers choice Killshots on a slider spider head and I dabble with finesse worms and swimbaits. Most of my fish come on the first three baits listed. 

 

Cranks are pretty simple, same that I throw everywhere, perhaps with some more natural colors. Red seemed to be a hot color last year, and it better be again since I stocked up on red cranks. 

 

Spinnerbaits with silver blades work really well too. My favorite skirt color is the SK bleeding minnow, white, red, smoke.

 

Swim jigs are something I want to work more with in the future. I have had luck with them, but fall back to the usual suspects instead of working with them. 

[wdp]

Swimbaits. 

[bonzai22]

Swim jigs are definitely my go to reaction bait for clear water. Shaky head would be my go to finesse technique.