Challenge situation

[TruiteBR]

I will participate in a local tournament next Sunday, but I am in trouble. Lol

It is spring here and I pre-fished the lake last Sunday and I had no success in finding fish. I could not fish the lake before that and I do not know in what phase of spawning the fish are. The biggest problem is that the tournament is in a reservoir and it has been raining a lot lately. Last week the water level moved up around 6 feet and the water is dirtier than usual. I tried mostly shallow water fishing last Sunday and didn't get a bite. Water temperature was 62 degrees.  What should I do???

Ps. Sorry about the bad English.

[Grey Wolf]

Spring in Oct. how neat.

[J-B]

If the water is still high, I would fish about 3 to 6 feet from where the bank normally is located. Fish it slow with plastics or baits like a rat-l-trap, or cranks with rattles in them. If it is spring there, I would think that the fish should be on beds or scouting the banks for potential beds. If they are then you would want to get the baits into their zone for reaction strikes, or them trying to get the bait to blow it out of their bed area. Drop shots, noisy baits, jigs with rattles, t-rigged worms or weightless senkos fished slowly should do the job. I would also use topwater presentations.

Good Luck in your tourney.

[fishfordollars]

Your english is a lot better than some from here on here.

[tnhiker44]

Your english is a lot better than some from here on here.

You took the words right out of my mouth!! Rising waters in spring probably has the fish freaked out. They want to bed shallow but shallow keeps changing. Good luck with that.

[Catt]

Water temperature was 62 degrees

Given a surface temperature of 62 we can assume the bass are either on nests or building nests.

With a huge influx of cooler rain water the surface temperature may fall putting the spawn off.

The question I need answered from you is will this water level stay this high or will it drop as quickly as it came up?

[Willzx225]

If the water visability is down to 1-2' I would throw a double colorado bladed spinnerbait.  If the water is still rising I would focus on the backs of the pockets.  If the water is falling I would focus my time on the secondary points that are leading into the spawning pockets.  Good luck!

[Glenn]

If the water is still rising or holding steady, get in as shallow as you most possibly can.  Those bass will be right up in the newly flooded areas almost as quickly as it rises.  Excellent time to flip and pitch, plus run shallow running baits like spinnerbaits and Rat-L-Traps.

If the water is receding, then pull off the bank to the next available cover or breakline and work those thoroughly.

Enjoy!

[D4u2s0t]

don't be afraid to break the "rules". If there's anything i've found over the years, it's that fish are not always predictable. I've caught some of my best fish of the year in places where people laughed for me wanting to go there, at times they said were no good. If they are not hitting shallow, try moving deeper. One of my biggest fish was in the middle of the lake, mid day, around no structure, no cover, nothing. Was just a completely *** backwards place, out of pure frustration. I was so aggravated, I said to myself if i'm not going to catch anything anyway, I may as well just cast where I "know" there's no fish..... WHAM!!! fish on. From that point on, I no longer followed the "rules". And many times I outfish other people on the lake simply because i'll try somethign different that they "know" won't work. Just like at one point in time, I myself "knew" it wouldn't work.

So long story short, don't be afraid to get creative. If something isn't working, change it up.

[TruiteBR]

Water temperature was 62 degrees

Given a surface temperature of 62 we can assume the bass are either on nests or building nests.

With a huge influx of cooler rain water the surface temperature may fall putting the spawn off.

The question I need answered from you is will this water level stay this high or will it drop as quickly as it came up?

The water temperature was 62 degrees after all the rain. I do not know if the fish were on the nests or what was the water temperature. It is not raining this week, and I guess it won't rain by next Sunday. I think the water level is going to stay high or will drop about 1 ft. We caught 1 fish and it was around 12ft. I had no bites on the shallow. I think the fish were on the nests, and when the water level moved up they stood in the same place. Is this possible? The batfishes were mostly in shallow water.

[Catt]

Many anglers falsely assume that bass in flood conditions will automatically follow the rising water level towards thenew shoreline. Very often especially during spawn and once the bass have selected a location for a nest or have already built a nest they will either stay put or the big females will pull back to the first break line towards deeper water.

During what we call the pre-spawn stage both sexes get very aggressive and very food oriented. But then there is a time frame in which the females become less interested in feeding, but the males continue to bite because they pick up the aggressiveness of the spawn. Then the females kind of backs off of feeding and becomes less aggressive as the hormonal changes in their body take place as they prepare to actually lay their eggs.

[Randall]

The better fish at that temp will usually not move up with the rising water but wait for more stable conditions in my experience. They will just suspend off the first breakline, secondary points  or over shallow creek channels coming into spawning areas. Even in dirty water a jerkbait or swimbait will be my first choice due to the suspended nature of the fish.

[TruiteBR]

To make everything better it seems that Sunday a cold front will come in and it will rain the whole day. Lol