What to do in clear water?

[Goggle Eyes]

Did some fishing at a lake last evening that was deep (fished in 11' to 25' of water) and featured some pretty clear water. I could see my lure about 5'-6' down as it was coming up. I dont usually fish in these conditions so it threw me off a bit.

What colors would you use for spinners? White?

What about crankbaits and plastic worms/craws? Would you go darker such as purple, dark blue or black or would it have been best to go light such as light pumpkinseed or something??? Its good to learn new approaches after taking a beating.

Heck they didnt even hit the Jitterbug after dark!!! There actually be no bass in that lake .

I tried just about everything in my box last night and was officially skunked for the first time in a long time. Not one bass, not even a dinker. Bummer! This is a high pressure lake with lots of recreational boating so I was apprehensive to begin with. Goose Creek in St Francois County, Missouri. Anyone tried this place?

[jivey]

Clear water for me usually means downsizing as well as using natural colors.  White would be my choice for a spinnerbait.  Shad patterns for cranks.

[Goggle Eyes]

so smaller lures, natural colors b/c obviously the fish can see clearly.

I dont think it would have mattered what you threw last night, they werent hungry!

[ultralightning88]

I went to school with a guy that has a lot down there o goose creek.

But yeah deffinately natural colors, Try to match the baitfish.

Good luck.

[kb929cdx]

I fish a lake here in Ga. that is very deep(400'-600'deepest pt)that is real clear(5'-10')range,it also has alot of pressure and has pleasure boats out the gazoo,that being said I catch fish all day everyday on a drop-shot rig!Use a watermelon candy finesse worm and bite it off right behind the egg sack!This works great!!Hope this helps you !!!

[JShrock07]

Clear water.... slow your retrieve down a lot. Try usiong jerkbaits, they are great in clear water. Drop shots are terrific and finesse worms fished extremely slow. Try a crankbait but make sure it doesn't have much rattling to it. That will just scare the fish in clear water. I learned from glenn to glue the rattles in clear water.

Good Luck to you!!!

[bubbler]

i fish lake caitas whih is reealy clear, ci would say 6-4 in ntexas rigs, im natural colors, kindat ry to make the bait watch the foragew u are fishing in and around.i wouls say holographic cranks, white spinners, and light ling,  nfish most of my t rigs on 8-10 line, oh and make the bait look natural, andf try o find the area with the most baitfish and fertal, offcolerd-dirty water. sometimes the bass will relate beter to deep water when the water is clear.

god bless

[JCrzy4Bass]

White spinners = yes

To emphasize on Jivey and Nitros posts:

Downsize your lures for the given conditions. In clear water generally I would use a 1/8 - 1/4oz spinner. With slightly stained maybe push it up to 3/8oz. As you increase spinner size, you increase blade size (generally... unless you custom config your spinners). The larger the blade, the more vibration.  Clear water you want just enough to help em' home in. Stick to chrome colored blades instead of gold.

The key presentation you are trying to make in clearer water is more of a baitfish presentation, you want to be relating to any feeding activity. Find pods of bait (shad, minnows, etc) and or surface activity if any.

Couple more pointers. You may want to see if you can locate slightly more stained water anywhere on the lake. Sometimes even a slight change like that can make things pick up. Runoff areas are a good choice if there are any, if not try and locate clay banks that form bars, points, or any other type of "structure".

As far as cranks I like simple colors in clear water (blue, gray, white, silver or anything natural looking). I prefer shallow running Mann's Minus One series cranks, hard jerk baits like rapala originals or berkley frenzy minnows, and Bandit series 200 cranks for deeper applications. This pretty much covers a lot of the water column.

[detroit1]

All the lakes i fish are clear, and the only time i downsize is when the water temps (in spring) are less than 60 degrees. After that, all the big boys get to come out and play until my season ends(early nov.). Clear water (to me) means fast retrieves for hard baits in mostly natural colors (unless cloudy skies or strong winds). I know you were talking about night fishing,(which is something i don't do) but i had to chime in anyways....

[A-Jay]

Quote

Clear water.... slow your retrieve down a lot. Try usiong jerkbaits, they are great in clear water. Drop shots are terrific and finesse worms fished extremely slow. Try a crankbait but make sure it doesn't have much rattling to it. That will just scare the fish in clear water. I learned from glenn to glue the rattles in clear water -

How do you "glue the rattles" I've never heard of this and fish a lot of very clear lakes ~ Please share . . .

A-Jay

[Jake.]

I might be in the minority here, but generally, the clearer the water, the faster I will fish. I don't want the fish to get a good look at my lure. I try to get them to smack it out of reaction as it whizzes past their heads. I usually do this with spinnerbaits, suspending jerkbaits, and crankbaits.

[fretfishman]

I might be in the minority here, but generally, the clearer the water, the faster I will fish. I don't want the fish to get a good look at my lure. I try to get them to smack it out of reaction as it whizzes past their heads. I usually do this with spinnerbaits, suspending jerkbaits, and crankbaits.

good point. that's a yes and no for me. I fish most things faster, but will fish crawbugs and such even slower than normal. I also usually switch from a normal jig to a swimming jig in these situations. I don't downsize much on my baits, if any, but I do use dropshot or splitshot presentations a lot for clear waters....which, for me, does introduce some smaller baits just due to the nature of the presentation. one of my faves is a 4-5" hand-poured, laminated shad color worm.