First Tournament for me..

[CMorg]

Well , our city park is having a bass fishing tournament this may. The lakes are hard to fish for me , havent had much luck on them. My question is this , should the spawn be over by then ? And would power fishing be the best thing to start with ? There is no structure to speak of , all the banks are riprap , there is one overflow basin , and one concrete seawall. The water is murky almost always. The biggest fish I cought there came on a spinnerbait , the most I ever caught was on a black buzzbait...

[lizardsrule]

Weather from now till then will determine if the spawn is over or not. I think you should prefish some, starting now LOL. I would try to locate something different than what you've been fishing. I'm sure if there is a tourney there, there are some nice fish. Perhaps where you've been fishing is not where they are. Great fishing to ya, hope you bring in a large bag.

Lizards

[skeeter944]

be confident in your techniques and you will succede.

[Bassinkid]

i think since there is no cover or structures then you would have to finese the fish because you dont know were the active fish would go to feed and were the unactive ones stay. but next time you go there really look for cover of anykind and look for structures. if its murky then use shiny colors for anything. if its sunny out maybe you should throw a silver, with a little orange, spoon. but also try something really noisy too. but i would think that spinnerbaits and buzzbaits would be best fit. you probably have to fan cast a large area to find some active fish or you could find any fish and try to finese them. Good luck though.

[carolina-rig-01]

here is my opinion for whatever it's worth... first off don't think of cover or structure as just timber, brush piles, or docks. a lot of the times the best available cover is channels humps or ditches. fish really relate to them even if you are fishing in a lot of standing timber or brush. i will give you an example, there is a smaller city lake that i fish from time to time. on this lake i struggled for a long time because i was fishing the obvious places like stumps and trees. i would catch good numbers but no size to speak of. then it started becoming obvious that i was missing something, pretty soon it donned on me that everyone that was fishing this lake was doing the same thing and these banks were heavily pressured. i found a little spot that was like maybe 7 or 8 acres of just shallow flats that had stumps all over. i was fishing the stumps and still nothing. but when i started paying a lot of attention to my electronics i found a few ditches and channels that had depth changes, some were drastic and some were as little as a foot or so. these were what i should of been looking for all along as they were full of fish and a lot of quality fish as well. my advice to you would be look for changes in the bottom, depth is the first thing you would think of but also think "what does the bottom consist of"? is it clay or mud maybe it's gravel or rock. what i am trying to say is fish may relate to one type of bottom and you should focus on the parts of the lake that have this. a transition area where it changes from one to another can be lethal at times. i would say with this in mind you should start with a search bait that you have confidence in, this is a bait that covers a lot of water, for me it is a crankbait (usually a bomber fat a). once you get a few bites then i would slow down and focus on this area with something like a jig and pig or what have ya. like skeeter said when you make up your mind on a approach or a bait have faith in your decision. the biggest mistake a lot of guys make is they spend too much time running around or changing baits because they are always second guessing themselves. best of luck to ya and i hope this helps a little.

[rrw4258]

i fish a similar pond, and my best 2 fish from there have both come on a Mann's Baby1-, in a Brown Craw color... as for your situation in spring i would try throwing cranks and spinnerbaits if pre or post spawn, and texas rigged plastics if they are spawning...

Ryan

[Super Fluke]

Some fish will still be in the spawn

[FlyRod]

Originally Posted by CMorg

Well , our city park is having a bass fishing tournament this may. The lakes are hard to fish for me , havent had much luck on them. My question is this , should the spawn be over by then ? And would power fishing be the best thing to start with ? There is no structure to speak of , all the banks are riprap , there is one overflow basin , and one concrete seawall. The water is murky almost always. The biggest fish I cought there came on a spinnerbait , the most I ever caught was on a black buzzbait...

Your current temp is below freezing, as of 0235 Terre Haute time, 02/12/07, so I think spawning is a non-issue. In fact, it will be a non-issue for quite some time.
Better you address true cold-water bassing.
Remember, there are always some folks here that will respond to ANY thread/topic/inquiry just because it gives them a chance to say something.
Learn to weed those out and you'll be ahead of the game.
You might be better served by spending the coldest period maintaining your tackle...or your marriage...

Yer Chum,

FlyRod

[pig n jig]

Originally Posted by FlyRod

Remember, there are always some folks here that will respond to ANY thread/topic/inquiry just because it gives them a chance to say something.
Learn to weed those out and you'll be ahead of the game.
You might be better served by spending the coldest period maintaining your tackle...or your marriage...

Yer Chum,

FlyRod

Maintaining marriages with mentioning the word period in the same sentence..... Well it wasn't good to read. It just about made me lose my breakfast this morning. It is good to see you around, I was about to inquire on your whereabouts, but I was called by Zooker last night and I still am confused as hell about life in general after just one half hour conversation.........Did I mention it was cold here as well ? CMorg, I am sorry, I felt like I was obligated to respond to this post, although I have no advice to offer. P N J

[carolina-rig-01]

flyrod...he said his tourny will be in may. that is quite a while from now and no maybe the spawn won't be an issue but i would deffinatley expect the water to be at a reasonable temp by then.

[bassnman30]

I have fished a city lake for a couple years. I look for points,areas where the wind will hit the banks. This lake is appx 40 yrs old and due to the age it has no creek channels,ridges or anything that may hold bass. 1st thing is to look for areas that recieve the most sun early in the morn. Granted, this place has loads of lay downs that do hold bass.
I've had days when I couldn't get a strike, and days when the fish were really on. This lake can produces large quantities of good sized bass. Due to the shad population the fish stay healthy.

[CMorg]

Yeah , its in may. I am currently spending my time with a one month old little girl....Thanks for all the advice guys.