So we (the web team) went to a close-by lake to do a little bass fishing (Eagle Lake in Minnesota). Sadly it was pretty muddy- low visibility and full of silt and debris. Plenty of laydowns, reeds and other cover, but muddy none the less. So we booked it to another part of the lake and just caught little Smallies until we got bored and left.
Like fools.
Muddy water can get the creative juices going for a Bass angler if they would only put forth the effort. Yes, anglers are ALWAYS willing to put forth more effort as long as we aren't at work, right? RIGHT! But we woosed-out and left. WRONG.
What we learned later is that with some work, muddy water in a great Bass spot can really up the ante on catching some great Bass. Here's what we learned:
1. We needed to bust out the shiny, noisy stuff with stout hooks.
Bass that are in the muds tend to stick super close to cover: laydowns, logs, reeds, etc. so they can feel where they are. Their eyesight is okay, but when they are in muddy water they stick to the things they can feel. However, you drop down something flashy and rattly it IMMEDIATELY grabs their attention. Boom- their brain says "SHINY!", they feel the vibration of something rattling and away they go. Also, we needed a stout hook, like the Zoneloc Flippin' Hook. This hook is beefy and specially-designed for heavy cover situations. We had these treble hook situations on dull-colored deep-divers. Dumb.
2. We needed to slow it down.
Bass can see in muddy water about 12 inches in front of their face. Something shiny moving SLOW is the way to go. Use a bobber and creep along that cover, inching towards the boat so they have that comfort of being close to that cover. Bass aren't afraid of muddy water, but they have that security blanket of the objects that let them know they are safe right next to them. But if something "delicious" shows up, they can't resist it. Just go slow, they don't want to be drawn out from that security anymore than they need to.
3. We should have gone a bit shallower.
There lies another key thing to ponder. We didn't want to go shallow, we were in a big boat. But if we would of rigged a good spinnerbait with a nice bobber situation, we could have used a light hand around the shallows grabbing attention big time. Get that bait right next to the cover, grab their attention and of course, cross your fingers.
In Conclusion
Even at Rod-N-Bobb's we need you, because we have all of our employees out fishing. However, getting our web team out in a boat can create a bit of a challenge when they are by themselves (Eagle Lake!). That's why we need you all to chime in. We all need to help each other out- especially us web nerds. Drop your helpful comments below. PLEASE!
