Anytime you can get out & fish is great, but all too often I’m off to the same spots, the same lakes & trying the same ‘ol same ‘ol. I need a little more excitement & action…it’s nice to get a little new action isn’t it? Plenty of lakes around & fish in the sea so why not go out with a new one…I mean to a new one. Fishing new lakes and finding new honey holes is awesome. You learn a lot and sometimes get to catch a lot too. Here’s how I pick apart new lakes fast and figure these crafty creatures out.
The search: first thing I do is find the most obvious spots on the map. The biggest points leading to deep water and humps or islands with isolated cover are first on the list. Next is finding the weedline. Weedlines always hold fish & offer a good starting point for depth to cover. Dirty lake and not many deep weeds? I probably won’t spend much time deeper than 10 feet & usually stick closer to shoreline cover and structure. Fairly clear? Clearly I’ll be spending more time off shore and searching for sweet spots in the abyss.
The senses: eyes & ears will tell you more than anything. While cruising along & cranking tunes I keep my eyes peeled looking for bottom changes,deeper weeds, unmarked spots, baitfish, buoys and things you don’t want to crash into. On the spot, sometimes I’ll even turn the Metallica down & listen to what’s going on around me. These pads look great but are they alive? Listen to how neat nature is… pops in the pads, frogs yakin & splashes of fish smashin. None of that & there’s probably not much to stick around for. Weeds growing green, fish to be seen…pooey brown, get outta town…big buoy down, just fish around.
The tools: the searcher, the pocket picker and the finesser. One rod to cover water & edges quickly, usually a white spinner bait. Once I’m around the thick stuff it’s a frog for sure. Next I have a rod with a 3/8 oz jig and some kind of flappin trailer. This one I use to flip into pockets on the spot or on the deeper edges. Picky punks that don’t want to chase & smash needs a cast or two for a finnese worm or Senko. Texas rigged for no clingers or wacky wam style on a 1/16 oz plain black jig…the need a nib special.
The new lake adventure for the day: I found the weeds growing from about 8-11 feet & started out casting spinners along the edge of an all alone weed hump. Then I would snipe a jig into a few open pockets & moved to the next point down the line. The hump looked too good to not try again later… even though I didn’t get a bite. The point looked good but was choked out with brown weeds & didn’t seem to hold anything. Cross that one off & on to the next…docks in an area where it narrowed down. Nothing but choked out brown weeds there & little surprise, no bites so on to the next. As I cruised across the lake to the next point, 19 feet suddenly jumped to 12 & I quickly dropped a waypoint and marked the top of this middle of nowhere gem. I had a feeling there could be something good on it so I knew I had to comeback. Next spot was an entire shore of pads so I trolled it & found a hard bottom transition & a nice point on it, later casted & lost about a 4 pound football next to the trolling motor.
Back to hump I dropped the waypoints on…as I crept up I marked a few things I assumed were giant bass ready to fight me. Deep crank to cover water around the hump, then a jig on top. Wammy! 3 pounder right as I hopped the high spot. Line jumped right after the twitch & fall back to the bottom. Gotta love that jig smash! A few more casts with the crank, worm, and one more nice one tricked on the jig.
Primetime arrives & it’s top water wam time. No finesse cruising through with my paddly frog. Back to the first spot with the pads & reeds on a hump. Frog made it about one twitch before it exploded…knew there had to be at least one there! I Covered a couple more areas I found earlier that looked good and ended up catching around 8 bass on the night with a couple over 3 pounds. Keep moving & re-visit those fishy looking areas for a quick pass. Awesome blow ups on the croaking chunk of plastic on a hook…nice to get a tug on the ol rodskie.
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