Lakes with a bad rap

[mheichelbech]

There are several lakes in my area that have bad raps for not having good bass fishing.  These are trolling motor only lakes.  I’m wondering if they are really that bad or people just aren’t fishing in ways that catch bigger fish such as deeper ,using electronics, etc.

 

Anyone ever do well at lakes like this simply because you’ve figured them out in ways that others have not been able to do?

[Born 2 fish]

Short answer is yes. 

[Mike L]

Sure

There's a few in So Cental Fla that have a “dink only” or “too overgrown” or “local only” reputation, and a few others
The reasons could be what you mentioned or they are trophy lakes so the word spreads from locals who don’t want the real conditions to get out. 

It takes time to really figure out a lake regardless of its size or conditions. 
I’ve fished Okeechobee for over 30 yrs and there are areas that I know hold fish year round or only when the weather changes or only in specific seasons etc. and some I stay away from all together. 

I also know people who swear there isn’t a fish in the whole lake!

 

I personally have fished most of the “bad rep” lakes and can honestly say have never been skunked.  Disappointed a few times but never what’s advertised. 
 

Don’t listen to anybody. 
Fish it using your high confidence baits in likely areas. 
You may surprise yourself. 

 

 

 

Mike

[mheichelbech]

1 hour ago, Mike L said:

Sure

There's a few in So Cental Fla that have a “dink only” or “too overgrown” or “local only” reputation, and a few others
The reasons could be what you mentioned or they are trophy lakes so the word spreads from locals who don’t want the real conditions to get out. 

It takes time to really figure out a lake regardless of its size or conditions. 
I’ve fished Okeechobee for over 30 yrs and there are areas that I know hold fish year round or only when the weather changes or only in specific seasons etc. and some I stay away from all together. 

I also know people who swear there isn’t a fish in the whole lake!

 

I personally have fished most of the “bad rep” lakes and can honestly say have never been skunked.  Disappointed a few times but never what’s advertised. 
 

Don’t listen to anybody. 
Fish it using your high confidence baits in likely areas. 
You may surprise yourself. 

 

 

 

Mike

Interesting.  Lake Monroe here in Indiana is a large lake (by Indiana standards) is known as tough however a friend and I can go there in the late Fall when water temps get into the low 40s and catch 30 pound limits consistently.  Unfortunately not able to reproduce that on Spring or Summers.

[scaleface]

yep

[Shimano_1]

I wouldn't let others convince me of it. Id go fish them enough to come up with my own conclusions.  There's a lake around here that is pressured to death because its the only lake around that has a lot of big fish but is tough and fishes a lot different than any other lake in the state. We don't always wreck em but we've done really well there. 

[ww2farmer]

Yes...my home lake, Silver, is universally HATED by about 90% of the area's tournament fisherman. It's known as a lake where it's very very tuff for non-locals, and as a lake where you will not get a ton of bites. It is what it is...most of the time I'm the only one there unless there's a tournament, suits me fine.

[Dogfish_Jones]

Lake Mitchell here in Alabama is super tough and most anglers really struggle during the summer there. Some will say it has big ole spots. The only big spot I have on Mitchell is my livewell.

[GReb]

There’s a smallish state lake by me that nobody ever fishes. It had that reputation. Well the state drained the lake this winter to reconstruct the dam and they moved about a dozen bass over 8 pounds. The comments on the Facebook post showing pics of those big girls were hilarious. Complete disbelief 

[DitchPanda]

My local pond/small lake has a reputation for not being very good. I fish it all the time and I constantly hear this place sucks..I fished 3 hours never got a bite...been camping all weekend I caught 1 dink. Yesterday was 111 heat index and the water temps are probably mid 80s. I fished about 4 hours today caught 9, biggest in the 3lb range. 4 of my fish I caught mid afternoon..not ideal time in summer from shore. Is it a great fishery? Not at all...is it worthless? Far from it. I think people don't know how to fish..also they have no ability to adapt or grind out a bite. They roll up to the ramp, motor to a laydown,throw a spinnerbait twice and say they aren't biting and just pout ? Also heard my lake has fish but they are all tiny. I caught a 4.5 and several around 3 in the past week during the toughest time of year for me. I've caught several 5+ fish this year including one in the 7lb range in April on a lipless.

[Teal]

Kerr lake here in NC or BUGGS ISLAND as the VA folks call it, has been getting a rep then last few years..and it can be a very frustrating lake to fish... but I've seen a buddy of mine easily go over 30 lbs in his 5 best about 10 years ago.  I think alot of it is just from people who don't spend alot of time there and then have a less than great outing.  A local tournament past week was won with 14 lbs.... but it's also mid july... it happens.

[scaleface]

I ignore the fishing reports too . They are rarely accurate .

[Hower08]

Few lakes like that here in Ohio. Often get a bad rap but their is always a few of us that network together and figure the lakes out and keep the information within a tight-nit group. If someone gets caught loose lipping one of these lakes they get cut from any valuable info

[Bluebasser86]

Only way to figure out is put in the time. The closest reservoir to me, Hillsdale, is pretty much hated my most bass anglers. Just today had a guy asking about fishing it for bass, I was giving some info and someone else chimed in they'd go pretty much anywhere else before they'd go there. I've won several weeknight tournaments there and caught fish close to 6 pounds. It just isn't an easy lake so guys go once and get frustrated and never go back. Of course it can't be their fault they didn't catch anything, must be that the lake sucks.

[drfunk]

6 hours ago, mheichelbech said:

Interesting.  Lake Monroe here in Indiana is a large lake (by Indiana standards) is known as tough however a friend and I can go there in the late Fall when water temps get into the low 40s and catch 30 pound limits consistently.  Unfortunately not able to reproduce that on Spring or Summers.

Monroe (aka the Dead Sea) is my home lake and it definitely catches a bad rep. But, I can't tell you how many people I see fishing midday and then are surprised when they catch nothing. It's so time of day dependent for big bass. The heavy boat traffic also tends to completely turn off the bite there, which I know may not traditional wisdom. So the fast side of the lake tends to be awful fishing on weekends. The slow side is still good especially early mornings. I know from first hand experience the big bass are there, it may just be harder to find them. So to the original question, I think it is really about understanding the lake you are fishing. If you apply the general bass fishing knowledge to a lake and have a tough time then that's when a lake gets a bad rep. But, it's understandable because you aren't going to be able to spend enough time at every lake to really realize its idiosyncrasies.

[Captain Phil]

The Harris Chain was the poster child for "bad lakes" for years.  It's had problems in the past, but it was never as bad as had been reported.  People would come here that were used to fishing Okeechobee and couldn't catch fish.  They expected to find Okeechobee style conditions with miles of grass flats and fishable cover.   Visiting anglers would spend the day riding around 50,000 acres of featureless water.  On these lakes, spot fishing is better than pattern fishing.  Local anglers caught most of the fish because they had more spots.  A sunken dock here, a residential canal there and you have a limit.  Today, hydrilla is changing these lakes.  The Harris Chain will never be Toho or Okeechobee, but it's better than most people think.

[mheichelbech]

7 hours ago, drfunk said:

Monroe (aka the Dead Sea) is my home lake and it definitely catches a bad rep. But, I can't tell you how many people I see fishing midday and then are surprised when they catch nothing. It's so time of day dependent for big bass. The heavy boat traffic also tends to completely turn off the bite there, which I know may not traditional wisdom. So the fast side of the lake tends to be awful fishing on weekends. The slow side is still good especially early mornings. I know from first hand experience the big bass are there, it may just be harder to find them. So to the original question, I think it is really about understanding the lake you are fishing. If you apply the general bass fishing knowledge to a lake and have a tough time then that's when a lake gets a bad rep. But, it's understandable because you aren't going to be able to spend enough time at every lake to really realize its idiosyncrasies.

Yea it’s amazing to me what we have been able to do there and the weather we’ve done it in.  You can literally see (and feel) cold fronts blowing through one after another, snowing, high winds, still catching them.  I think that lake has shown me the difference between how the fish bite when there is no pressure vs when there is pressure.  It’s especially cool to catch 5 and 6 pounders in 3-5 ft of water on Rattle Traps when the water temp is 43 degrees.  Talk about going against conventional wisdom!

12 hours ago, DitchPanda said:

My local pond/small lake has a reputation for not being very good. I fish it all the time and I constantly hear this place sucks..I fished 3 hours never got a bite...been camping all weekend I caught 1 dink. Yesterday was 111 heat index and the water temps are probably mid 80s. I fished about 4 hours today caught 9, biggest in the 3lb range. 4 of my fish I caught mid afternoon..not ideal time in summer from shore. Is it a great fishery? Not at all...is it worthless? Far from it. I think people don't know how to fish..also they have no ability to adapt or grind out a bite. They roll up to the ramp, motor to a laydown,throw a spinnerbait twice and say they aren't biting and just pout ? Also heard my lake has fish but they are all tiny. I caught a 4.5 and several around 3 in the past week during the toughest time of year for me. I've caught several 5+ fish this year including one in the 7lb range in April on a lipless.

I just caught my pb in the middle of the day in about 2-3 ft of water when it was in the high 90s.  Of course that was a small lake/pond not a bigger lake.

[Vilas15]

I think some lakes have a bad reputation for one of three reasons. Either people aren't fishing them right, they're a good lake and people spread misinformation, or they're truly bad. Can't find out until you put in the time. Not every lake has big fish that only a few people manage to catch. Some are actually better or worse than others and that's just biology.

[Logan S]

Lake Anna in VA has a pretty bad rep...To the point where it has nicknames like One Fish Anna, The Dead Sea, Lack Anna, etc....

 

It takes some time to learn but it's not a 'bad' lake in reality, and it has giants in it.  A big reason people hate it is that around here (Northern VA and MD) tidal rivers are the dominant waters for bass fishing and especially tournaments, so many guys are really keyed in to that type of fishing which is about as opposite from Lake Anna as you can get.  The other reason is that even for a clearwater lake, it's not typical since it has sort of an odd nuclear power plant configuration (not a typical warm discharge)...It's unique and you sort of the throw the book out the window when you fish it.  

 

I personally like it, but I've spent a lot more time there than many who don't like it

[mheichelbech]

1 hour ago, Logan S said:

Lake Anna in VA has a pretty bad rep...To the point where it has nicknames like One Fish Anna, The Dead Sea, Lack Anna, etc....

 

It takes some time to learn but it's not a 'bad' lake in reality, and it has giants in it.  A big reason people hate it is that around here (Northern VA and MD) tidal rivers are the dominant waters for bass fishing and especially tournaments, so many guys are really keyed in to that type of fishing which is about as opposite from Lake Anna as you can get.  The other reason is that even for a clearwater lake, it's not typical since it has sort of an odd nuclear power plant configuration (not a typical warm discharge)...It's unique and you sort of the throw the book out the window when you fish it.  

 

I personally like it, but I've spent a lot more time there than many who don't like it

Being a clear water lake do you find that the type of line you use makes a difference?

[Hower08]

2 hours ago, mheichelbech said:

 It’s especially cool to catch 5 and 6 pounders in 3-5 ft of water on Rattle Traps when the water temp is 43 degrees.  Talk about going against conventional wisdom!

We have a lake like that local to us. We were catching giants in knee deep water in March this year mid 40 water temps. I'm not talking 1 or 2 either . Multiple giants every trip to this lake. Hell we started getting them on topwaters when water was 47° craziest **** Ive ever seen. Everyone else was fishing deep and slow not catching anything and we were catching 30+fish in a few hours of fishing. Had multiple bags over 20 pounds in a one month stretch

[Mike L]

4 hours ago, Captain Phil said:

The Harris Chain was the poster child for "bad lakes" for years.  It's had problems in the past, but it was never as bad as had been reported.  People would come here that were used to fishing Okeechobee and couldn't catch fish.  They expected to find Okeechobee style conditions with miles of grass flats and fishable cover.   Visiting anglers would spend the day riding around 50,000 acres of featureless water.  On these lakes, spot fishing is better than pattern fishing.  Local anglers caught most of the fish because they had more spots.  A sunken dock here, a residential canal there and you have a limit.  Today, hydrilla is changing these lakes.  The Harris Chain will never be Toho or Okeechobee, but it's better than most people think.

It sure is!!

When those morons killed every blade of grass which destroyed the spawn areas back in the 90’s they learned. 
 

By controlling the hydrilla now instead of trying to kill it which killed everything else, the chain came back especially Little Harris. 

If I remember right, the back of the canals where the insecticides didn’t reach were really the only areas that a decent bag could be had. 

I remember boats being stacked in there. 

 

Also, when they planted reeds and stopped trying to artificially control the water levels they all came back. 
it took 25 yrs but it worked. 
 

 

 

Mike

[Logan S]

17 minutes ago, mheichelbech said:

Being a clear water lake do you find that the type of line you use makes a difference?

I always think line type is an important consideration, so by default yes.  

[mheichelbech]

4 hours ago, Hower08 said:

We have a lake like that local to us. We were catching giants in knee deep water in March this year mid 40 water temps. I'm not talking 1 or 2 either . Multiple giants every trip to this lake. Hell we started getting them on topwaters when water was 47° craziest **** Ive ever seen. Everyone else was fishing deep and slow not catching anything and we were catching 30+fish in a few hours of fishing. Had multiple bags over 20 pounds in a one month stretch

Haha, yep I’ve caught them on buzz baits at 50 degrees.  In fishing, just like deer hunting, it pays to break the rules (but not the law!)....or make your own!  I can’t take credit for the Rattle Trap deal, honestly if my buddy hadn’t showed that too me, I wouldn’t have ever tried it.

[Bankbeater]

There is a lake near me that fills up with vegetation from about mid-May until the end of July.  Almost all of it covers the shallow flats.  Most people I see fishing stay away from that area because they don't want to get tangled up in the weeds, so I usually have the entire lower end of the lake to myself.