Having trouble bank fishing with lures like crank baits and spinners and jigs can you give me some tips?The lake that I am fishing on is pretty murky looking and I am using two crank baits that are pretty colorful. One is bright green and about 4 1/2 inches long and seems to only dive a little the other is " light bass " and has a read belly a big square bill which dives a ways down. I also have a... |
"Be the ball, Danny" - Ty Webb, Caddyshack.
Ok, so that's about golf, but it applies to fishing just as much. "Be the bass." Figure out how fish work. A bass is a predator. It's more of an ambush predator though. So, first thing you need to think of, is where in the lake can the bass ambush its prey? That means it needs a couple things: first is food. There should be crawdads, shad, bluegill, something there. No bait=no fish and you're wasting time. Second, it needs a place to hide. If you see bait fish, but there's no place for the bass to hide, there won't be bass there.
Second, for murky water, go with darker colors, typically. Browns, reds, blacks. Also, use a crankbait with rattles in really murky water.
Third, when using a crankbait, you need to HIT SOMETHING. Baitfish don't just swim in a straight line in open water. Bass are dumb, but they know when something doesn't look natural. If your crankbait isn't hitting the bottom (or the tops of weeds, if it's a grassy/weedy lake), it's not going deep enough. With a square bill, you need to bounce it off sunken tree branches and such. Deflections get bites.
For the worms, Texas rig them and drag them on the bottom. You can hop them too.
Here's what I'd do:
Unless it's a rocky bottom with some sparse trees/stick ups, leave the crankbaits at home.
Spend a couple bucks and get something you can work higher in the water. It's fall now, so there's 2 places I would be working: top water, and in the 0-5' depth range, give or take.
Topwater: poppers, buzzbaits, cigar baits. In fall they work all day. Buzzbaits use a steady retrieve just to make a gurgling sound, poppers I use a pop-pop-pop-rest cadence, and cigar baits I'm not very good with.
0-5' range: 3/8oz double willow or willow/colorado spinnerbait, 3/8oz chatterbait, 1/4-1/2oz lipless crankbaits, shallow running crankbaits, soft plastic paddle tail swimbaits.
My tackle of choices:
Strike King Bleeding Elite buzzbait
ZMan Original Chatterbait
Strike King Red Eye Shad (lipless crankbait)
Strike King Series 1 and KVD 1.0, 1.5 crankbaits (1.0/1.5 are square bill)
Terminator or War Eagle spinnerbaits
Rapala Skitter-pop or Strike King poppers
heddon zara spook or Rapala Skitter-walk cigar baits
Zoom swimmin' super fluke (soft swimbait)
Try all kinds of reaction baits, white or chartreuse spinner bait, rat-l-trap and I'd also give top water a try in the late afternoons before dark or early morning. You could throw a rip rap too. This might just be a pond without many fish. Good luck to you man hopefully you'll hang a monster out of the pond
Here's some tips:
"Murky" water???? - With darker colored water, you generally want to go with darker colored soft plastic's (rubber worms, rubber creature baits, Etc). Good colors for plastic worms for your conditions (dark/stained/coffee colored water) are:
Black, Black/Blue, Black/Grape, Green Pumpkin and Red Shad.
Rig your worms Texas Style with a (good) 3/0-4/0 Offset EWG (extra wide gap) hook- (Gamakatsu brand) OR rig any "stick worm" Wacky Style with a weedless wacky hook.
Here are the brands of worms you might want to check out-
A. Berkley Power Worm 7" (read 260 reviews here)- http://www.basspro.com/Berkley-PowerBait...
B. Yamamoto Senko 5" (read 456 reviews)- http://www.basspro.com/Gary-Yamamoto-Sen...
How to rig Texas style-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h-GD2QP...
How to Wacky Rig-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZActyKl3rtw
In most conditions, Soft Plastic's will generally get you more bites than any other lure. Concentrate on plastics and I guarantee you'll get more and bigger Bass.
Cast to apparent woody structure, weed-lines, edges of lily pads, culverts and (esp) under docks. Bass are premiere ambush predators- they prefer to hide in and around structure.
Also, if you don't get a bite within 6-7 casts, MOVE to another section. Don't cast in one tiny section of a pond or lake and expect to catch something. You MUST move around...
Hope this helps? Good luck!
