Shallow Fish.

Notice that says Fish not fishermen.

Yes, we know the EFN shop carries the “Kick N Bass” Garlic scent thingy and it works…

Anyways could everyone whether Prostaff or just everyday fisherman could share their experiences with fishing VERY shallow.

All depends on the species targeted, but Muskies in less than 1′ foot would be shallow to me…The same with Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass. Wet ra…err I mean Walleye I would say the 3′ to 4′ foot range is very shallow.

Interesting thing happened while on Mille Lacs this June. I was out with fellow guide Derek “Duck” Johnson on Mille Lacs throwing for Muskies. Derek was using a 8″ Jake Crankbait and was twitching it on the shallow side. He proceeded to boat 5 WALLEYES in 3′ of water from 26″ to 31″ Needless to say we were suprised at the amount of large Walleye in the same small shallow area. Water temps were in the upper 60’s…

What are your experiences?

HOw about 3-4 lbs smallmouth in a 2-3 foot mud bottom bay. Yep this last summer I found a group a real nice smallies in the mud.
The next one is more surprising to me then that. Mid-Summer water temps 70+ and its pushing 11:00 PM and the lake was clam and we were trolling for walleyes and we kept hearing splashing. This was top water walleyes after dark. We put together a top water bite for them and you would not believe how many big ones we caught. Next time out give it a try. We casted # 12 husky jerks. It was awesome.

I caught a musky last summer out of 1 foot of water in “grassy” type weeds. I have seen plenty of muskies swimming in shallow water with their fin sticking out of the water like a shark.

I got to see the back fins of a black backed predator on the Apple River last year working a small flat. I assume it was a pike by the darkness of it’s color but it was cool to see. The fish was an easy 10lbs! I couldn’t get it interested in my offerings though.

I once fished Lake Wapogassett near Amery, WI on the WI state opener and we had temps in the 90’s! Awesome for us!!! Anyway, I was tossing #4 Mepps Combo Killers in Yellow with a 4″ PowerGrub as the twister tail. I was tossing toward the shore of an island and I had a 3.5lb. bass practically beached itself to get my lure! My lure hit right where the shore and water met and only came about 3″ into the water by the time that bucketmouth got a hold of it! Talk about a lot of splashing! Good thing I was pulling him toward deeper water or it would’ve had to flop around a bit to get into navigable waters. My dad’s eyes were just about out of his head……………said he’d never seen anything so aggressive in all his years! We continued to find more bass in this pattern that day but I’ve never seen it since. Water temp was about 66 degrees but likely to be warmer yet right next to shore. The sun was beating in there pretty good.

One question for you guys about fishing shallow. Have any of you experienced bass that WON’T bite unless you stick that lure INSIDE the weeds they’re hiding in? I had a day last summer where just in front of the weeds wouldn’t do the trick. Nor would running parallel to the weedline, just in front of the weeds. I had to put the lure IN the weeds and then BAMMM! Once I figured this out, I went from “0” fish to 17 in less than 2 hours! Just wondering if midsummer action is common to this technique?

Drop shotting in the weeds….

Watch the Linders new show for more info…

Stillakid,

The vast majority of the bass, especially the biggest, I catch are from deep in the weeds. Jigs are awesome, but a drop shot has been a little secret a few of us have been using.

I’ve seen walleyes with their tails out of the water when nosing down in shallow rocky areas on Mille Lacs when they are feedeing on crawfish. Go to Forest lake and the majority of bass will be in 2′ or less eiher under docks or around scattered reeds. Shallow fish = active in my book, usually.

MFO,

Do you find that numbers of large fish will come from the same area deep in the weeds?

On Tonka for example we key on areas the size of a dinner table, or smaller. There’s usually something just a little bit different. It may be rocks, sand, weeds, just something different. Once you find a spot it will usually put fish out all year long. And they are usually reall good size. In one wednesday night torny we fished we caught 14 bass on consecutive flips with a jig. Every fish was over 3lbs. Now that’s the best I’ve seen it, but 4-5 fish in the 3-5lb range are common per spot, and we usually only stay at a spot for 15 min.

Thanks for the tip guys! Just to clarify, however, I wasn’t jigging. I stuck a twister tail in weedless fashion onto a 1/4 oz. white and pink spinnerbait. I would toss that right into the weeds, reeds, clumps, and sticks and if I got it right in there, I’d have some “fishy” resistance! Another interesting factor in this was working weeds with a medium lite rig! Sometimes there was a whole lotta tuggin’ goin’ on!

Thanks again for the tip guys!

SAK

I have a couple observations/tips to add
1 – on the shallow fish topic – I learned this back in the day walking the shorelines before I had a boat. I watched a bass hanging out in the shallows and threw a couple different lures both at it, and past it and eased it up to it…it just got spooked every time it got close to it. Well there was a metal stake in the water about 15 ft awat from the fish so I pitched the same plastic worm it had ignored before, hit the stake with the bullet sinker and the bass just darted over there instantly and grabbed it before it ever hit the bottom. Since then I’ve had similar experience many times. Spooky fish (generally from clear water/high sun) that are cruising the shallows tend to have a “home object” that they hang out around. If you see the fish throw at/or bump into the object (dock posts, stumps, laydowns etc. even if the fish is relatively far away from it) if you found the right object you will be amazed how fast the fish reacts. I’m not 100% sure of the reason but I assume its the noise/vibration of actually making contact with the object I also think that because of this its an even stronger reaction if you hit a metal dock post/pipe etc. than wood.
2 – on the topic of bass buried in the weeds – When I fish something thats penetrating down into the weeds (either jig or tex. rig plastics) always use a rattle. The thicker the vegetation and the larger the area covered the more important it is to keep it down there, shake it, and let the fish find it.

I catch many walleyes in 4′ of water or less. I have even caught walleyes on more than one occasion in 1′ of water or less when there fins are stickingout of the water. This is usally a spring or fall thing when the water is cooler but have caught walleye in in june in 1′ of water. The shallow water bite usally takes place on wind blown points or rocky shorelines with 3-5′ waves crashing into it. I usally use a jig and cast it towards shore or throw a crankbait. Just remember that boat control is very important in these conditions and can very easily throw you up into the rocks. This is one of my favorite ways to catch walleyes as it is usally fast action and they seem to put up more of a fight in this shallow water

My largest walleye came out of one and a half to two feet of water at 1:30 in the afternoon with bright skys but stained water [river]. The bait fish were in there and so were the walleyes. I was longline trolling a jig plastic combo with a half crawler on a shallow flat. If it works on a river flat there is no reason why it shouldn’t work on a lake flat too. Bass fisherman catch both bass and walleyes casting shallow all the time so why should we let them catch all the fish? Fish shallow and see what happens. Thanks, Bill

Hi All,

During the perch spawn here on the Big V, walleye can be taken on cranks right off the shoreline. Its a small window of about 10 days but the bite is intense and the fish are way above average.

There are also many opportunities for muskies up in the shallows. Sometimes it’s in the grass but most of the time it happens on the rocks. Windy cloudy days can really make it happen over large mainlake reefs and on points with large boulders.