Goto Bass presentations / Lures?

Hitting up the chain for a derby on Sunday and have never fished the chain, ever.

I hear the system is down 2 – 4ft right now so not sure how that will effect the fishing and how to approach it.

Not looking for the “super secret” stuff, not looking for spots, just wondering what generally works here, and or what to avoid.

One person who’s fishing the derby said to avoid craw type baits because of the catfish, not sure if that’s true or not so looking for any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

The chain use to be a great Bass lake. Every since they put the Cats in there its been all down hill. There are still some in there but hard to get a bait past all the cats to them. The SM bass seem less effected since the cats- They may be better now than before them. Its hard to target the SM because they tend to move around a lot. Horseshow lake itself probably has the biggest population of them. Both the SM and LM are probably in all three stages right now – Pre, Fully spawning and probably some post spawn already for the SM. The LM spawn should be in full swing on the smaller bays like Mud, Zumwalles and schneiders are a few I’d check. Good luck out there – Hope you can keep the Cats off your line long enough to catch a few bass. Id stay away from Spinnerbaits and anything red in a crankbait – For some reason the Cats destroy them out there.

Thanks for the feedback. Appreciate it.

So Mud Lake ended up being the spot! Took home 2nd.

Went out and pre-fished Wednesday last week and found a bunch of bedded down fish, putzed around Zumwalles and schneiders but really didn’t see much going on so really focused on Mud Lake in the morning of the tournament.

Unfortunately those who were in the know also focused on Mud, top 4 teams all fished Mud Lake.

I did pull one 4lber out of the small bay/inlet that’s on the right side of the no-wake zone going into Schneiders.

thanks again for the heads up, really helped narrow down my focus.

Glad you caught a few and had a good tourney. Were there many SM weighed in?. Were you able to keep the catfish out of your way?

fishthumper wrote:

Were there many SM weighed in?.

I heard second hand a few people pulled in some smallies, but I didn’t see it, we didn’t allow more than 5 people at the weigh-in station and so everyone had to stay with their boats and only one person per team was allowed to go.

Were you able to keep the catfish out of your way?

Saw a crap load of them, but never had one go after any of my lures. What I though was the craziest was seeing schools of walleyes with the catfish.
I was in the far east side of Krons Bay in about 4 to 5 feet of water on the outside weed line and could see a poop (lol @ auto correct of $h!t to poop) load of cats schooled up, then I saw the white tips on the tails and sure enough they were eyes schooling up with the cats, was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.

Becker and Horseshoe are the best bass lakes in the chain, fish the slop and the weedlines with Scumfrogs and Jigs and you’ll get the biggest fish of the chain there…