Clear Water Tactics

[Rodman_Rob]

I tend to fish a lot of clear water. Fishing in clear water can be very challenging. Not only can the fish see you, but they get a better look at your fake metal and plastic lures that are supposed to look like fish. Because visibility is increased, they can see baits from further away, often times to chase down the lure only to turn their head up at the last minute. When fishing clear water, it is IMPORTANT to use a VERY NATURAL presentation. Flurocarbon line is a must on any of your slow moving baits. Its not as necessary on your faster moving baits but I'd suggest it. Color selection should also be something natural, watermelon seed, watermelon red flake, white, black, pumpkin are all good colors. Noisey baits can work, but I've always had better luck using baits with little noise in clear water. Chatterbaits and some of my crankbaits just put out way to much vibration for one fake baitfish to appear natural. Some prefer to downsize while in clear water, personally I don't think its necessary as often as some think. I've also noticed bass tend to school up and feed on schooling baitfish more often in clear water so keep that in mind when thinking about bait selection. And one other tactic I'll tell you about that I used this weekend with some good sucess......stirring things up. The bass were chasing the baitfish all over the lake (small lake). They would only hit them 4-5 times at the same spot before the baitfish either escaped or the bass ceased feeding to regroup, only to feed on the baitfish at hte next spot in the next 5-10 minutes. This created a bit of a problem for me. The bass were moving too much and following the baitfish. If the baitfish weren't boiling on top of the water, I couldn't find them. So instead of chasing the baitfish down only to be seconds late, I found a weedline in shallow water but close to deep water. All I did was take my boat through the weeds using my boat and paddle to stir the water up. I ended up making a clearing in the weeds about 25 feet long and 5-15 feet wide (yeah, took a few minutes). This did a couple of things, stirred up the silt, sediments, bugs, and baitfish that was all hiding in the weeds. Minnows and other baitfish feed on the silt, sediments, and bugs attracting other baitfish to the area and made the water a little less clear helping to disguise my lures a little more in the ultra clear water. After making the clearing, I left the area and fished another spot. I returned to my clearing a couple hours later and managed to catch a nice bass on a rattle trap on my second cast in my new spot. Managed to catch 4 bass that hour at my new spot.

[Vabass22]

Actually, yesterday, I fished the clearect water around here, and caught the only one of the day, on a chatterbait. The key is to fish it slow enough to where it vibrates just a little.

[DeadManwalking92]

When I fish clear waters I use suspending jerkbaits because of the subtle movements. Also soft plastic crawfish have worked well for me