Low water post frontal

[GoneFishingLTN]

Ok so I live in Iowa and our water is pretty low. We had a Storm on Monday and Tuesday bright skies with no clouds. How do you personally approach this? What do you look for?

I wanted to look for brush piles but didn’t have more than 6 hours to fish in total, do you you look regardless?

[scaleface]

I just go fishing like normal . Maybe shy away from top waters . Fish the cover and structure like I normally would and try to piece things together . I went yesterday same conditions in northern Mo. not far from Iowa. I just made a post in another thread so I'll copy and paste here .I caught bass on spinnerbait , worm and one on a Red Eye shad ...and yes , if there are brushpiles I'm fishing them especially post frontal conditions .

 

 

  "Dont go home because the fish are not biting . Yesterday was tough . Bright sunny skies after a day of heavy rain . After 4 hours I had boated 4 little bass . But slowly I started building a good stringer . I dont know if the bite picked up or I just got dialed in . Ended up with 20 , a limit over 15 inches and 2 bass just shy of 4 lbs . Let me tell you about my largest . There was very little surface activity all day .  no  bait fish or anything . But one time there were some schooling bass . I usually dont chase schoolies but fishing was tough .  Reaching them as fast as possible  I moved into  casting range then the action stopped . I made several cast with a half ounce Red Eye shad to no avail.  I launched another cast , let the Red Eye settle to  the bottom at nine foot, gave a few hops and felt the tap . Set the hook and landed a very fat 3.98 lber . "

[Skunkmaster-k]

Post frontal in my mind means dragging a worm really close to cover. Usually I find them a little deeper hugging anything wood. Points are a good place to start. 

[WRB]

Post frontal = cold front.

Bass tend to slow done, deeper bass over 20’ unaffected like shallower bass above 5’ that tend get tight to cover.

my choice deeper bass.

Tom

[jimmyjoe]

   Where in Iowa? I live in the SE corner, and our lakes have already turned over. Cold rain makes it much worse. I have seen no active bass in shallow water, although walleye, pike and musky are still active. A couple days of slightly warmer weather, bright sun and low-or-no wind, and that could easily change.

   Our lakes show a little drop, but nothing drastic. Have yours dropped drastically?

 

   Or are you fishing rivers, because the rivers are totally different. With no thermocline and no turnover, rivers hold pretty close to pattern right up until hard freeze. However ....  the rivers are the ones that have dropped drastically. I'm still catching bass, but the patterns have "exceptions" now.           jj

[PressuredFishing]

4 hours ago, GoneFishingLTN said:

Ok so I live in Iowa and our water is pretty low. We had a Storm on Monday and Tuesday bright skies with no clouds. How do you personally approach this? What do you look for?

I wanted to look for brush piles but didn’t have more than 6 hours to fish in total, do you you look regardless?

Exactly whats happening to me, on a more severe side because of CA drought. Bass are in survival mode and have tight lockjaw when this happens, and you can get bites dragging a worm, but they will still react to moving baits really well, my theory is because if water has dropped 50% in my lake in 2 months bass are super hungry and go crazy. If it isnt as severe as this, target deeper water right next the the structure that got dried up, bass dont want to move far, just far enough. If there is a layed down tree in the water or a grass line that dried up, fish the deeper part of that downed tree or a deeper channel near that grassline or downed tree. Also check nearby points, or backs of coves, because its fall

[scaleface]

It seems to me that Bass like to hang around stuff post frontal or not . The deep fish may tend to suspend but the shallow fish are still close to stuff .  

[DitchPanda]

I live in northwest Iowa had the weather you described those days. Caught 11 Monday...Tuesday I caught 4 and a nice walleye. All of my fish came shallow as I'm a bank angler.

[papajoe222]

I have the same situation occurring on my home lake. The water level is way down and the majority of shoreline cover is exposed.  I shifted my concentration to small patches of green vegetation and was able to pick up a few decent fish, but my biggest of the day was suspended about 2ft. off bottom at the edge of a fairly sharp drop off. A 1/16oz. bullet weight,  in front of a 4in. strait tail worm got her.

Although you'll likely not locate fish on your D/F, do a little scouting anyway. I search for baitfish and then target that depth looking for cover, or bottom changes. 

No matter what you find, or where you begin your search, the fish's strike zone will be small. You'll need to put your offering right in front of them and possibly keep it there for a while. Smaller jerkbaits and soft plastics are good choices, but don't rule out a jig/plastic.

[Skunkmaster-k]

1 hour ago, papajoe222 said:

No matter what you find, or where you begin your search, the fish's strike zone will be small. You'll need to put your offering right in front of them and possibly keep it there for a while

You said it better than I did.