Difficult fishing waters

[Nathan Garlinghouse]

Hey everyone, looking for some input here. Outside of fishing a mini jig and a couple other things I’ve been struggling at this particular lake near me. Super super muddy water, like 3 inch MAYBE of visibility… highly pressured fish as well. Chatterbaits don’t work here it just spooks em, but they have a hard time finding alot of my finesse baits because of how muddy the water is. It’s proven to be really challenging lol. Mini jig does great problem is, you gotta land it right over there head and I’m a bank fisherman so it’s one in a thousand casts lol. I’m looking for some advice on maybe some different things to try.. super noisy stuff spooks them, they’ll only hit natural colors as well. After work I’m going to throw a silent deep crankbait and a silent squarebill. Any help would be appreciated! Also we are super windy everyday here if that helps. 

[Cbump]

Drag a worm

[gim]

I'd use something bright in color.  One particular lake I fish this time of year is starting to get like pea soup and bright colors help the fish locate the lure better from a visual stand point.

[Pat Brown]

Big ribbon tail worm with a very light weight.  Walking topwater with less rattly stuff (zara spook).  You could mod some lipless crankbaits so they don't rattle anymore really easily and those are deadly in ponds.  Big blade spinnerbait is way way better than chatterbait in muddy water on fish that are highly pressured IMHO.  Also definitely fish slow and use bright colors.  Both help in mud.  Even though it's a really muddy pond, there's probably a couple places where the water is clearer than other places on the pond.  Maybe focus on those and see what happens if you can get a bait in those areas.  I find clearer water near the bank away from the in flow usually/towards the 'middle'.

[Mobasser]

Try a spinnerbait. Brighter color and blades to put out good vibration.

[Catt]

Zoom's Trick Worm,  Merthiolate, Wacky Rigged 

[Nathan Garlinghouse]

46 minutes ago, Cbump said:

Drag a worm

Tried that. Shaky heads, ribbon tails, only worms I have luck with around here are Ned worms 

[Bird]

Definitely try a Spinnerbait if you haven't already.

Couple of weeks ago I fished dirty water and caught several on a weightless senko in June bug.

[the reel ess]

48 minutes ago, Cbump said:

Drag a worm

Preferably a black worm. And rig a glass bead between the weight and worm so it clicks. 

[Darth-Baiter]

make some noise.

 

add a glass bead.  glass and brass or something.  

 

make a ruckus on topwater?

[Cbump]

56 minutes ago, Nathan Garlinghouse said:

Tried that. Shaky heads, ribbon tails, only worms I have luck with around here are Ned worms 

Maybe the body of water just sucks. 
 

Id hardly say mini jig “works great” if it’s 1 in a thousand casts. 

[Darth-Baiter]

from shore, that's sometimes how it is.

[WRB]

Welcome to BR. Where are you located, this information helps us a lot.

How do you know that noisy lures spook the bass? maybe you are seeing carp or catfish pressure waves from spooked fish, water clarity is too poor to see fish.

Tom

[LrgmouthShad]

"Ol muddy" in NC is a pond that my family fishes. It can get very very muddy and the bass are rather picky in there. It is one of the weirdest bodies of water that I've fished because if you ain't fishing plastics, you ain't getting bit. The absolute best lure is a weightless texas rigged senko, especially a black one. That has remained consistent for quite a while. If you have not tossed a senko in there, give it a shot. 

 

See my profile pic? That's ol muddy

[scaleface]

f the water is routinely muddy , bass are acclimated and  will have no trouble finding whatever lure  is used . If  there is a rip rap dam bass can usually be found there.  Various bottom  hugging lures will work . 

[Nathan Garlinghouse]

20 hours ago, Cbump said:

Maybe the body of water just sucks. 
 

Id hardly say mini jig “works great” if it’s 1 in a thousand casts. 

Well I mean I was exaggerating a bit, the point I was trying to make was that very few baits manage to pull in fish and even the ones that do, don’t seem to be very consistent. I’ve tried many techniques as well. 

20 hours ago, WRB said:

Welcome to BR. Where are you located, this information helps us a lot.

How do you know that noisy lures spook the bass? maybe you are seeing carp or catfish pressure waves from spooked fish, water clarity is too poor to see fish.

Tom

So I’m located in North Dakota. The lake I’m taking about is Patterson Lake. There’s tons of carp. I know about the fish reacting to noisy baits negatively based on what I’ve heard from local fishermen and from some friends that have seen it on livescope. I’ve tried throwing noisy baits myself and have never caught a single fish on them. Alot of people just go an hour and a half from where I live to fish rather then just go to the lake that’s here in town because of how difficult it can be to get a fish to bite. 

[LrgmouthShad]

20 hours ago, Cbump said:

Maybe the body of water just sucks. 
 

Id hardly say mini jig “works great” if it’s 1 in a thousand casts. 

Always a possibility.

 

please go over to Somerville sometime and tell me that it’s not just me that can’t catch a bass there. Stupid lake ?

 

Like, I’m thankful to catch a bass over 7lbs from there. But really now I’m just thinking it was because those fish were prespawn and easier to catch. I still didn’t get a limit that day

[Nathan Garlinghouse]

31 minutes ago, LrgmouthShad said:

Always a possibility.

 

please go over to Somerville sometime and tell me that it’s not just me that can’t catch a bass there. Stupid lake ?

 

Like, I’m thankful to catch a bass over 7lbs from there. But really now I’m just thinking it was because those fish were prespawn and easier to catch. I still didn’t get a limit that day

Our state record is like 8 pounds so I mean, catching a 4 pound largie is something to be super happy about, we have good smallmouth though. ?

[galyonj]

29 minutes ago, Nathan Garlinghouse said:

...we have good smallmouth though

 

 

Just fish for them instead. ?

 

Don't sweat the dirty water. I fish a lot of water with spooky fish from the bank (as you describe yours), and my go-tos are as follows:

 

- a weightless stick or trick worm in either a very dark color or very light color depending on how bright a day I've got overhead (I'm partial to junebug or chartreuse/white, but you do you)

- a ned rig if the structure/cover allows, same plastic colors as above)

- light skirted jigs, as you already noted.

[Darth-Baiter]

that kayaker guy on the TUBE catches awesome Smallie and Pike in SD.

[galyonj]

The Bob Ross of fishing? Love watching that dude.

[Darth-Baiter]

Just now, galyonj said:

The Bob Ross of fishing? Love watching that dude.

yup.  that guy flat-out catches them.

[Mr. Aquarium]

I would find another lake! To me that doesn’t sound fun, but I’m used to fishing ultra clear 

[huZZah]

I have never fished clear water and I’m strictly bank.  Sometimes you just are a big 0 for the day and can’t be helped. For all you know the fish weren’t within a mile of you. 
 

That being said, I still throw dbl colorado blade spinners, the rattle swim jigs, no rattle swim jigs, worms, arkie and football jigs, and square bills and lipless cranks. I do not have good luck with any chatter bait.  
 

In gross water I also don’t have great luck with too water beyond very early morning before the sun comes up. Never even good at night for me. 

[Munkin]

4" Berkley Power worm in solid black Texas rigged. Anywhere the water is muddy and over 60 degrees this is my panic bait.  We have tournaments here on the local river and in the summer boat traffic muddies the water. Between the water color and boat traffic that little worm shines.

 

Allen