What happened? I thought I was going to smash them...but didn't...wind??

[clemsondds]

Ok so I don't have any bass fishing friends or knowledgable family members;  you guys are the closest I have ha.  So would you mind helping me try to figure out something out?  I know there's a ton to bass fishing to I'm not asking you to figure out why I didn't catch them...just curious about a couple things.  

Went to Lake Jordan in NC.  My second time there.

Air temp was 60-75

Water temp: 58-62

1.5-2 ft visibility

Wind 20-25mph 

Sat and Sunday were nice in the low 70's so Monday was the warmest day.  Tues (today) is a high of 62 and there was rain last night right after I got off the water. 

So I was thinking, with that water temp and the pre-front conditions I was really hoping to smash them.  But that's not what happened ha. 

The wind was blowing hard all day...white caps first thing in the morning and all day.  I fished mostly moving baits all day.  Hit wind blown points, coves where it was blocked by wind so much calmer, rip-rap that wind was blowing into...not much luck.   So my question is...with it being pre-frontal, prespawn conditions, could the wind be blowing so hard that it shuts the bite down?  Or is it possible a lot were already moving in to spawn?  I fished a lot in the backs of coves and I didn't see much of anything.  I have  livescope (2nd time out with it...so still not 100% with it) and still didn't see much.  

What do you think happened?  I tried to switch up to different parts of the lake to try different clarity but still got the same result.  Right as the sun was setting, I picked up 3 real quick with a squarebill.  And during the day I tried most everything moving (buz, walking, squarebill, jerkbait (ito), lipless craw, rockcrawler, 6xd, flippin jig, football jig, senko neko...

Just trying to learn. Thanks 

[TnRiver46]

I have never caught much of anything  in the wind (except when trolling). Granted if it’s 20-25, I’m not going out there. I’d much rather fish in the snow than 70 degrees with wind 

[Mat_ski]

2 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

I have never caught much if anything  in the wind. Granted if it’s 20-25, I’m not going out there 

Me too. I hate fishing in the wind. I’ll take heavy rain and snow but I’ll pass on heavy wind. Not sure how it affects the fish but it sure affects me. 

[Catt]

13 minutes ago, clemsondds said:

with it being pre-frontal, prespawn conditions

 

There's your problem right there!

 

Pre-frontal conditions move fish

Pre-spawn conditions move fish

 

The effects of a front can be slight to total lock jaw.

 

The effects of pre-spawn can be a feeding frenzy or shutdown.

 

This time of the year it's all about timing.

[Choporoz]

That is a lot of wind.

I like to think it's going to be lights out from the time they start coming up until they get on beds, but it isn't like that every day.  There are still bite windows and you still have to find the creeks with bait.  I was in NC 10 days ago and fished for three hours without a bite.  Rolled into a small creek rich with bait and it was one after another....and then stopped abruptly.   Three coves down, it was hot and heavy again...for about 20 minutes....still have to find the bait.  I am a very methodical kayak fisherman, but there are periods in spring and fall when you can skip a creek when you don't find bait after a few minutes....but...that's also a lot of wind...lol

[scaleface]

30 minutes ago, clemsondds said:

And during the day I tried most everything moving (buz, walking, squarebill, jerkbait (ito), lipless craw, rockcrawler, 6xd, flippin jig, football jig, senko neko...

I double down on cover and structure when the fishing is tough and use lures that work well in the cover or structure targeted . Throwing everything is what I use to do and it rarely paid off .

[Blue Raider Bob]

I got skunked Friday at Dale Hollow. Ist time i've been skunked since........well I don't remember ever getting skunked. I can understand your disappointment. Tried Silver Buddy, Ned Rigs, Jerkbait, Crank....ect.

[TOXIC]

Here’s what we did to figure them out on Sunday facing the same conditions you have but even worse….we had sustained 20mph winds with gusts to 40.  Water temp 60-65.  Most likely pre spawn.  We saw a lot of beds with no fish on them.  We pulled into a known spawning cove with shallow docks, a deeper channel in front of them and a hump on the outside of the channel and then another secondary channel with another hump behind it.  From there it was main lake and deep water.  We started throwing locating baits, Ned’s and Senkos.  Caught some small bank runners and what we thought were prespawn bucks.  Nothing of any real size.  Next pass we worked the dock facing side of the hump in the drop from the hump to the channel. Same locator baits.  We caught better fish.  We then fished the top of the first hump and the backside leading out to the main lake.  No takers so we moved to the inside edge of the second hump.  No takers.  So we moved to the last edge facing the main lake and now the wind really came into play so I switched to a 1/4 oz dropshot and that’s where we caught our better fish.  Later in the day we were able to catch them under docks that were in deeper water.  Every situation is different, every lake is different but I hope that gives you a glimpse into how we picked the water apart.  

[TnRiver46]

10 minutes ago, Blue Raider Bob said:

I got skunked Friday at Dale Hollow. Ist time i've been skunked since........well I don't remember ever getting skunked. I can understand your disappointment. Tried Silver Buddy, Ned Rigs, Jerkbait, Crank....ect.

Well it needs to get better, I’m headed there soon haha. What water temp were you seeing? 

[NoShoes]

10 mph is A lot of wind for here. I wouldn’t go in that much. 

[papajoe222]

8 hours ago, TOXIC said:

 We started throwing locating baits, Ned’s and Senkos.

You and I differ greatly in what we use as search, or locating baits for active fish.    I use cranks and spinnerbaits to search out active fish and then switch to Senko's and drop-shot. Different strokes I guess.

[clemsondds]

33 minutes ago, papajoe222 said:

You and I differ greatly in what we use as search, or locating baits for active fish.    I use cranks and spinnerbaits to search out active fish and then switch to Senko's and drop-shot. Different strokes I guess.

 

 

9 hours ago, Catt said:

 

There's your problem right there!

 

Pre-frontal conditions move fish

Pre-spawn conditions move fish

 

The effects of a front can be slight to total lock jaw.

 

The effects of pre-spawn can be a feeding frenzy or shutdown.

 

This time of the year it's all about timing.

Thank you for your thoughts!  That's interesting to hear! I didn't realize that!

[papajoe222]

3 minutes ago, clemsondds said:

geez...there's always one great response like this.  Did you miss the 9 baits I mentioned before the senko and ned?  And I didn't say I used those (senko and ned) as a "search" bait...just baits I used throughout the day. Actually I said "mostly used moving baits all day" and listed spinnerbaits and crankbaits....thought it was pretty obvious I was using those as search baits but guess not

 

Dude! I was quoting TOXIC, not responding to your original post.

[clemsondds]

8 hours ago, Choporoz said:

That is a lot of wind.

I like to think it's going to be lights out from the time they start coming up until they get on beds, but it isn't like that every day.  There are still bite windows and you still have to find the creeks with bait.  I was in NC 10 days ago and fished for three hours without a bite.  Rolled into a small creek rich with bait and it was one after another....and then stopped abruptly.   Three coves down, it was hot and heavy again...for about 20 minutes....still have to find the bait.  I am a very methodical kayak fisherman, but there are periods in spring and fall when you can skip a creek when you don't find bait after a few minutes....but...that's also a lot of wind...lol

That's interesting.  I looked for bait but just didn't see much except out deep.  I did see a lot of bait against the wind blown rip rap but couldn't see any bass with them.   I'm sure I just wasn't in the right place.  Lesson learned.  Sounds like a good system you have. thanks

4 minutes ago, papajoe222 said:

Dude! I was quoting TOXIC, not responding to your original post.

Oh LOL I was kinda wondering lol...sorry it was a long day...fish on

8 hours ago, scaleface said:

I double down on cover and structure when the fishing is tough and use lures that work well in the cover or structure targeted . Throwing everything is what I use to do and it rarely paid off .

That's a good idea.  I should have stuck to flippin/pitchin a little longer...Thanks for the help!

[clemsondds]

9 hours ago, scaleface said:

I double down on cover and structure when the fishing is tough and use lures that work well in the cover or structure targeted . Throwing everything is what I use to do and it rarely paid off .

So what do you typically use?  thanks for the feedback

[LrgmouthShad]

I fished in these same conditions. We’re pretty close. No luck here either. That day was wild. Nothing was biting. 23mph wind in a kayak made for an adventure too. 
 

[GreenPig]

Fished similar conditions today(15 mph winds with 25 mph gust, water temp 62 - 64). Caught 19 on a weightless Super Fluke & 6" Bone Bull Shad casting over and along weed lines in 5' - 8' on the windy side of the lake. I've found that a Super Fluke fished somewhere between dead sticking and skipping across the surface will almost always produce in those conditions.

[txchaser]

Last weekend the water was 60 degrees in north Texas, with a heavy cold front coming in a couple of days. Cloudy, windy, I was thinking it was going to be lights-out first big move up out of the deep, and last year in nearly identical conditions I got a couple of big fish (13.0, 8.5). 

 

I was dead wrong. I caught fish, but nothing of size. Which was wild, because the weekend before in 50 degree water I was killing it on the drop-offs from feeding areas to deeper water. One of my better bags in a while actually. Big fish was in 3fow, rest of them around 8'.

 

I didn't realize it until the drive home, those bigger fish nope'd out and went back deep and face-down - it was the second cold-warm transition, which was different than last year. The smaller ones were up more shallow (mostly 6' deep in 6-10fow). 

 

 

[thediscochef]

So I was out bank fishing in similar conditions two days ago - I checked the times I caught my fishes and the nearest NWS station. Sustained 20-29, with gusts to 40 as a strong front rolled in. Casting into the wind required mag brake adjustment. I was up in the cove behind the rocks I normally fish on that face open lake. The wind was blowing up into the cove, but the water was much calmer vs the capping on the ramp. What wound up being important for me was watching topwater - I would see 8-10 shads jumping away from a point in the water, basically any time the rain would start up for a second, the topwater would start. I also managed to hook a shad on my jerkbait in a retrieve. So I knew there were active fish and bait there despite the cold water temps. From there, I just tried to emulate baitfish in a few ways and look for the spots where the fish were hunting - not so much to cast on top of them, but to see how far off the shore and over what areas of depth. This area has a creek bed down to about 10 feet in the north half, with gravel and rock flats on the south end.
I would then cast into similar areas to where I saw bass hunting, just not on top of them. Both a lipless crank (yo-yo retrieve) and a slow rising jerkbait (twitch twitch pause) did the trick, in various white colors. I pulled out one good size spottie and a decent male LMB. Chatterbaits and C-rigs were thrown but not bit. 

[clemsondds]

10 hours ago, txchaser said:

Last weekend the water was 60 degrees in north Texas, with a heavy cold front coming in a couple of days. Cloudy, windy, I was thinking it was going to be lights-out first big move up out of the deep, and last year in nearly identical conditions I got a couple of big fish (13.0, 8.5). 

 

I was dead wrong. I caught fish, but nothing of size. Which was wild, because the weekend before in 50 degree water I was killing it on the drop-offs from feeding areas to deeper water. One of my better bags in a while actually. Big fish was in 3fow, rest of them around 8'.

 

I didn't realize it until the drive home, those bigger fish nope'd out and went back deep and face-down - it was the second cold-warm transition, which was different than last year. The smaller ones were up more shallow (mostly 6' deep in 6-10fow). 

 

 

Has anyone noticed that prespawn starts around 48 and goes up to around 56...and then when it gets closer to 60...they slow down?? Is that a thing?  I'm sure it was a combo of weather...but just wondering if it got too close to spawn and just missed the prespawn bite by just a little bit. I know bass all spawn at stages so I'm sure there were still plenty at the prespawn stage...but just curious what played the major factor in them not in a feeding mood.  But I spent most of the day in the backs of creeks and secondary points and flats and just couldn't find them...so that's why I thought it might be more of a weather thing. No idea ha...that's what frustrates me.  But I still had a blast...one of the first times I was able to fish from sunup to sundown...it was my only request for my birthday...my wife thinks i've lost it lol  

[Blue Raider Bob]

19 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Well it needs to get better, I’m headed there soon haha. What water temp were you seeing? 

Started at 48 deg. got up to 52 deg in the back of Indian Creek. Lots of people fishing but I did not see anyone catch a fish. Heard there was a 200 boat tournament there Sat. and Thurs. and Friday practice days a lot of fish were caught shallow on Chartruese spinner baits. I had one big fish on Friday but did not get it in. Nary another bite the rest of day. 

[CrashVector]

21 hours ago, Catt said:

 

There's your problem right there!

 

Pre-frontal conditions move fish

Pre-spawn conditions move fish

 

The effects of a front can be slight to total lock jaw.

 

The effects of pre-spawn can be a feeding frenzy or shutdown.

 

This time of the year it's all about timing.

 

Came in to say this exact thing.

 

This time of year, Bass are starting to push up a tad more shallow, but cold fronts will push em right back out.

 

Sometimes, they'll stay shallow and just refuse to bite.

[TOXIC]

12 hours ago, papajoe222 said:

You and I differ greatly in what we use as search, or locating baits for active fish.    I use cranks and spinnerbaits to search out active fish and then switch to Senko's and drop-shot. Different strokes I guess.

Our reasoning is that with the slower finesse baits we will catch anything that’s up shallow including any that may be on the beds whereas, those fish would probably shy away from your moving baits.  Since we caught all knot heads up shallow, we knew to move deeper.  ?

[scaleface]

13 hours ago, clemsondds said:

So what do you typically use?  thanks for the feedback

Depends on what I'm fishing . Steep banks , flat banks , coves , points , brush , riprap , weeds ... They all get fished differently .

[TnRiver46]

2 hours ago, Blue Raider Bob said:

Started at 48 deg. got up to 52 deg in the back of Indian Creek. Lots of people fishing but I did not see anyone catch a fish. Heard there was a 200 boat tournament there Sat. and Thurs. and Friday practice days a lot of fish were caught shallow on Chartruese spinner baits. I had one big fish on Friday but did not get it in. Nary another bite the rest of day. 

Thank you sir. I think those tournaments are tricky with the slot, most people seem to target largemouth