Went Fishing on Monday

[MO3N]

Me and my dad went out fishing on Monday on a lake near my house. The lake is not huge but good sized for around here. The lake runs north to south, with the south end usually containing a large mat of lilly pads but on Monday they were just starting to grow up. The water temp was about 45 degrees, blue bird skies and a visability of aout five feet. This was also the first nice day in a long time, the night before it rained really hard. We started off the day throwing frogs, jigs, lipless cranks and spinnerbaits through the growing lilly pad bed. It was only about five feet deep so pretty shallow I think for early fall? but my dad got a hit on the spinner bait. After that we started working our way around the lake and hitting docks and over hanging trees with worms, jigs, cranks, jerkbaits and spinnerbait. We fished from about 8am to 2pm with only that one bait. I am planning on going back again in a couple days. Any advice on how I should fish this lake and these conditions?

Baits
Jig- a black and red 3/8oz jig with a red and black craw trailer
spinnerbait- a 1/4oz char/white double colorado spinnerbait
jerkbait- original rapala
cranks- different DT's in silver/black or bluegill pattern
frog- green spro frog
Softplastics- senkos and craws T-rigged

P.S. first time using my new rods and reels from christmas, and first time casting a baitcaster for a long period of time. didnt get too many backlashes so that was good

Thanks for any advice.

[fishin spro]

Buzzbait, Horny toad, and white floating worm.

[Cavs1123]

id try fishing the cranks real slow.

[BassinNC]

If you don't have any get some shaky heads.

[Strike_King 609]

1st i would get a compass and find the northern most tip of the lake this area will heat up faster then the rest of the lake because it gets sunlight longer. I would try suspending jerk baits the weather here on the east coast isnt the greatest right now with the cold front moving in i believe your best shot will be that north end. Keep throw that jerk bait over and over in a fanning motion. Let the bait do the work for you Count to 5 on ever other turn of the reel. If you cant pick them out with the jerkbait i would go with a red eye shad or a xclabuier one knocker both have great sound and can cover alot of water. Match the color with the enivorment. Up here in NJ perch colors and sliver shad are killers this time of year. Its all about slow rolling this time of the year. Good luck on the water let me know if it works for you

[Vegasspider]

Well my guess would be that since the water is 45 degrees still on the cold side and taking the north end advice, for sure some sort of suspending bait would be in order. A jerk bait should at least turn the bit on. Is there a lot of grass? If so you could probably still work in a red lipless but I would really need to be on and see the water before I would say that would work. But a suspending jerk bait and of course you could never go wrong with a tube. Due to the water temp painfully slow would be the key I would think

[screwballl]

One thing to remember is that lakes can only hold a specific "weight" of fish. Typically it runs around 5-10 lbs per acre, depending on fishing pressure, keeper limits and how often people actually follow those rules. If there are a lot of people keeping a lot of fish here then it will be tough no matter what you try.
Example: if it is a 50 acre lake, there is estimated 250 lbs which means 250 1 lb. fish depending on how it was managed and is fished. If there is decent harvesting/fishing, then it may be something more like 100 fish around 1-2 lb and maybe 1 to 3 fish over 3 lbs. A Private pond where things are closely managed may have 10 acres but also 10 fish over 5 lbs. since the smaller ones are likely harvested and eaten.

So this means the best bet for catching any fish in these smaller ponds and lakes is to keep the presentation smaller. 4" trick worms, senkos cut in half, small 1/8 oz cranks, jigs with the flair trimmed back just a bit and no trailers (except maybe second hook) for a smaller presentation.

[MO3N]

Thanks for all the tips. I'll give them all a try next time I'm fishing a smaller pond.....I went fishing there a few days ago and happened to run into my old wrestling coach from high school a few years ago and he is a biologist and was monitoring that lake and he said the amount of phosphorous and stuff in the lake was killing off almost all the fish.....so I'm not saying that is why I didn't catch anything....but that is what ill blame it on lol

Thanks Again