What Will This Weather Do To The Bass Fishing

[chasintails]

So I live in northern illinois and can tell you that it is flat out cold and raining. Last week wednesday surface temps. were in the mid 50's and things were starting to happen. Some smaller males began to move up to the flats and into the creek arms. Larger females were occassionaly being caught moving up also. Well thats when everything changed. Cold and Colder have been the forcast and now lots of rain. Over the weekend the surface temps have dropped to a high of 49 and I'm expecting them to continue to fall a little by the time thursday rolls around. My question is what do you think this temperature drop and muddied up water will do to the fishing? What areas would you target in dropping muddied waters for prespawn fish, and what baits would you use? I'm just wanting to catch some bass and it looks like thursday will be the best out of many to choose from. The fish gotta eat sometime right? Lets get some suggestions.

[Blue Streak]

This is the coldest, wettest spring I can remember. March was wiped out and there have only been a few decent days in April so far. The river has been high for a couple of months and the lake temps are barely in the 50's and there is no sign of change.

[ww2farmer]

Same story here in WNY, this April has been cold, wet, damp, and did I mention cold? It's a double kick in the you know what for me. Not much money to be made as a farmer looking out the window watching dirt dry, and we can't fix what we have not used/broke yet. The guys at the shop are starting to go stir crazy. Can't even pass the time fishing because the winds blowing 100mph every day. That, and the cold temps, and daily rains make it down right not enjoyable. When I have been able to get out, I have caught fish, it's not on fire, but enough to keep you awake, starting slow, just like every thing else this year. I doubt I'll get my 120+ trips to the local lake this year.

[Rob G.]

I live in Eastern Illinois. I can tell you that some of the fish are still going to spawn regardless of this cruddy weather. Past experience tells me this. Muddy water will make things a bit more challenging, but there will still be some big girls caught. Have been doing pretty well around here for a couple/few weeks. Maybe going to go tomorrow if I can beat the rain. Good luck.

[chasintails]

So to make things even more interesting last night we had one helluva storm blow threw with lightning, hail, and wind. What do the bass do when they are faced with these conditions. I'm assuming they move to deeper water, but do you guys think that they will suspend over deeper water or hang close to bottom? Also I'm sure the water will be muddied. What presentations are you guys going to use with post frontal cold prespawn bass?

[mrbassky68]

It hasn't really been that cold in April here. March was actually pretty decent. The big issue for us in April has been the lake levels. The local lakes have been up several times and dropped back down and for the past 9 days the lake has been up 15ft over summer pool. They have been dropping it fast then we get a little more rain and it goes back up. Its dropping again now but its still 12ft over pool. I have a big tournament on the 30th and it may not be normal by then and to make matters worst when I practice it may be a couple feet higher than it will be during the tournament.

But I looked at the results of the last FLW tournament on Chickamagua where they faced a similar scenario and the there found bass spawning on the steeper banks and not in the shallow flats where you expected they would be. Also the top technique for many was using a jig to catch bass a little deeper on those banks. So thats my plan for the local tournament, fish the steeper banks in spawning pockets and creek arms. It makes sense that bass would be on steeper banks when the water is going up and down.

[Fishmaster10]

I live in central Illinois, and I fished a lake this past saturday when the nasty weather moved in. I thought the fish might move deeper, but they were still holding in 5-6 feet of water. I know there have been a few more days since then that have been cold as well, but I'm assuming they were close to spawn here and if that is true they still might be fairly shallow. I would start by fishing shallow and if nothing seems to be going on I'd look for a deeper pattern.

[chasintails]

Good advice, kind of what I was thinking. You have some nice lakes around bloomington I'm missing me some evergreen about now.

[Fishmaster10]

Evergreen was the lake I fished

[clayton86]

Its been pretty crapy here in wny as well hail major cold fronts 60mph winds. I caught a 7lb lmb today in a quary water was chocolate milk colored bout 43*water temp air was 37 she was holding in 3ft of water under a downed branch. 3/8oz booyah topsecret spinner in red craw pattern she hit soon as it touched water I thought it was a stick I snagged till it got closer to the surface and she took off like I had a blue marlin or something outa the deep lol