Increased Current on Reservoir Due to Rain

[NH_Bass_Tard]

On the small reservoir that I fish, the current was noticeably stronger due to heavy rains from previous days. The water was pretty muddy up the first third of the reservoir also. I went out fishing the usual spots the other day and had very little luck. What adjustments should be made when this situation presents itself? how does it affect bass behavior?

[WRB]

Heavy rain run off can have a few different affects on bass. If the rain water flowing into the lake is colder than the lake water, the bass move warmer water, if available. All predator fish like bass face into the current to ambush prey. Largemouth bass do not like heavy current and will move away to areas with minmal current.

If the lake level is raising due to the run off, the bass tend to move up into newly flooded areas and use ditches or channels to funnel prey to them.

WRB

[Black Water Basstard]

This is what I do its just like fishing the inlets during the tide changes for snook look for places that have noticable breaks in the currents especially if they tend to have drop offs

[RoLo]

As WRB suggested, if inflowing water is both cold and muddy that usually makes for particularly tough fishing

because it sharply reduces the bass's feeding window (vision + reaction time). On the other hand,

if the inflowing water is not colder than the mean lake temperatures, you should be good to go.

Areas of increased current are highly sought by tournament fisherman, who typically bunch together

at entering creeks, below locks, at bottlenecks, at weirs and the like. All the same, take a good look

at a largemouth bass and you see a broadsided fish with broad fins and tail.

They're obviously not built for high flow rates such as trout. But even trout, which are designed

to work in current, spend the bulk of their day "outside" the main current.

Indeed, current can dramatically increase the feeding activity of bass, but look for them outside the main flow

behind a land point, land pocket, stump, drop-off, back-eddy or any low-pressure pocket.

Roger

[Catt]

Look for bass to be located on the down current side of structure