Clear water pressured fish

[JWall14]

Any bait ideas or strategies? I’m going to hit it from the shore. I’m thinking jerkbait, frog- there’s a big shallow weeded flat, and dropshot? 

[J Francho]

Make long casts and fish a bit deeper than you're used to.

[Deleted account]

fish early and late mid week with natural subtle baits, and fish really slow or really fast. I like JBs, small cranks, slim senkos, t-rig craw, and topwaters and inline spinners. Adjust as fish respond (or don't).

[Preytorien]

I agree with the above. Also, downsize and go natural colors. I find myself using a lot of Ned Rigs in natural colors on bodies of water that are clear and pressured.

[Big Rick]

If you can fish at first light, go with a small popper. You'd be amazed at how good fish will react to it first thing in the morning before the sky gets too bright. At the very worst, you can locate fish with this bait that you'll be able to target with different baits until you find what they're eating...

 

This Evergreen OB Popper is dynamite. It doesn't make too much racket, has a small profile yet easy to bomb long casts with my baitcaster, and the chartreuse mouth is very easy to track in low light conditions. It's a fish catching machine...

 

[TnRiver46]

Light line! 

[Deleted account]

1 hour ago, Big Rick said:

If you can fish at first light, go with a small popper. You'd be amazed at how good fish will react to it first thing in the morning before the sky gets too bright. At the very worst, you can locate fish with this bait that you'll be able to target with different baits until you find what they're eating...

 

This Evergreen OB Popper is dynamite. It doesn't make too much racket, has a small profile yet easy to bomb long casts with my baitcaster, and the chartreuse mouth is very easy to track in low light conditions. It's a fish catching machine...

 

Darn you! I think that's like the only popper I don't have. The Monkey thanks you.

[Big Rick]

1 hour ago, BassWhole! said:

Darn you! I think that's like the only popper I don't have. The Monkey thanks you.

HAHA!  Well, I'd rather catch fish on a popper than any other option, so I am ALWAYS researching and trying new options. That said, my favorites, by far, are Evergreen OB's and Don Iovino's Splash-It. A distant third is the Rico's. I say distant third because they're so blamed expensive and don't do near as good a job as the first two. The Splash-It makes a bigger presence in the water and has a more pronounced "splash" than the OB. But, in clear water the OB is the champ in my book because it's more slender, has a lesser pronounced "pop" so it don't scare skittish fish. And, it'll cast a country mile on my Tatula SV with 14lb Cajun Line....

[Black Hawk Basser]

Mile high skies and/or pressured waters calls for downsizing everything.  Smaller baits, slower retrieves, lighter line, etc.  May not always work, but it helps.

[Deleted account]

13 minutes ago, Big Rick said:

HAHA!  Well, I'd rather catch fish on a popper than any other option, so I am ALWAYS researching and trying new options. 

You are preaching to the choir. I have a popper fetish. 

[Big Rick]

4 minutes ago, BassWhole! said:

You are preaching to the choir. I have a popper fetish. 

Well, since we have TOTALLY hijacked this thread, what are your favorites?

[greentrout]

early in the morning the chug bug is a bass slayer and other times  ... of all my yrs. bass fishing the chug bug has produced the most vicious strikes i've ever seen and heard ... 

 

my mileage ...

 

good fishing ...

[Deleted account]

9 minutes ago, Big Rick said:

Well, since we have TOTALLY hijacked this thread, what are your favorites?

When fishing clear water pressured fish (and everywhere else) my favorites are in no particular order,

DI Splash-It, Yellow Magic, Rico, Modified Pop-R, Xcalibur. That is for spitting, splishing action. I hardly ever walk a popper, and bloop, or gurgle with some others. 

[AstroFishingTV]

7 hours ago, JWall14 said:

Any bait ideas or strategies? I’m going to hit it from the shore. I’m thinking jerkbait, frog- there’s a big shallow weeded flat, and dropshot? 

Use natural colors and downsize your presentation. I love to pull out the finesse worm and rig it on a drop-shot. They just can't take the shaking sensation ?

[JWall14]

I’m gonna go broke with all those poppers!!

[Big Rick]

1 minute ago, JWall14 said:

I’m gonna go broke with all those poppers!!

Use good line, tie good knots, retie often, and you'll have them for years.  I broke off just yesterday on my favorite OB popper. 30 seconds later it floated up. I grabbed it, retied, and went back to fishing. 

[J Francho]

I only use one popper, a Popmax in python, though most of the paint is worn off.  For the past three years, it's accounted for most of my fish over all other baits.

[WRB]

On September 25, 2019 at 5:23 AM, JWall14 said:

Any bait ideas or strategies? I’m going to hit it from the shore. I’m thinking jerkbait, frog- there’s a big shallow weeded flat, and dropshot? 

Define clear water pressured fish? 

Are the fish Smallmouth or largemouth?

Clear water like a swimming pool?

Pressured, hundreds or dozens of anglers daily? What size is this water, a pond, small or large lake, river or stream?

Finesse bass fishing was developed to present lures to highly pressured  bass in clear water. 

Lures and presentations are dictated by the type of bass and structure /cover they are located. Fishing from shore restricts where you can fish and what lures can be effectively presented to the bass.Drop shot rig, IMO, isn't a good rig to cast and retreive from shore. Split shot, finesse or standard C-rig and Bullet weight at-rigged soft plastic are effective form shore.

Surface lures including weedless frogs and spoons are good from shore if the cover allows the sngler to land the fish.

Tom

 

 

[primetime]

Light line, light split shot rig and smaller finesse worm in natural color would likely get bit, ned rig or slider rig, smaller fluke.....I believe that the lighter the line the better in clear water, if its pressured, try to throw a bait they rarely see like a curly tail worm or maybe a different color. 

 

Roboworm colors and that 4" curly tail they make have become some of my favorite plastics along with the finesse worms. I wish I would have started fishing them more in the past....Same with the GYB shad shape worm.

 

Rebel makes a little popper in some nice clear water patterns that will get bit. Same with some of the smaller wake baits from Mann's etc...I would always try a small Rapala Minnow in maybe the f-5 size as a topwater or slowly wake the jointed models. Something about the floating Rapala's and balsa that makes them flat out catch fish more times than not.