advice on new water

[doc]

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...58022&t=h&z=14


Me and LowRider have a tourney at some new water this week. It is an old oxbow off of the arkansas river. The river has been into it in the last month or so but has dropped out. privided is a link to google maps to show the oxbow.
it is the larger oxbow just south of 212 and the dam.
Morgan Point is the name of the place. We did not have time to prefish this weekend so were making a blind trip. I was thinking jig-n-pig (blue/black/ chartruce trailer) for stained water, mabye top-water early switching to a spinner bait. But what about where to fish, any nice looking places stand out to you guys?

[Lilmoosecountry]

White spinner baits, White Or Chartruse Swim baits, Crankbait anything firetiger, 1/2 jigs with white grubs. Use a large prop or a dual Buzz bait. I hope this will help. This is my kind of water on the missouri. This is what i use allot of.

[JB]

The pattern here for weeks has been finding large rock on the bank, timber nearby an deep water near by. They were on pts and now 1/2 back in the cuts...of course I'm talking 60-64 degree waters, I 'm sure yours is warmer.
Crankbaits have been king this year, almost all the fish on wood.

[doc]

JB water here is in the low 70 range, I assume its around the same there.

[doc]

Anyone else take a look at the map and offer any advice/tips. New water scares me, plus im dealing with the backseat in lowriders new boat now. I havn't landed a fish from the back in the damn thing yet.

[JB]

On new water you could always just hunt for points and secondary points, fish on them at some depth just about all year, find them on the graph.

[Fish2win]

I used to fish several Ms river oxbows in days gone by. It seemed that after the spawn the most productives areas would be the old runouts to the river(where the river exits when it floods) or any underwater points on the main body of water. I take it that like the Oxbows in Ms and Ark that the lake is ringed by Cypress trees. If so look for the isolated cypress that stands out off the bank alone. That is most likely the end of a underwater point. These lakes are usually a semi bowl; type configuration on the bottom so there are few real drops. The channel that is formed by the run out or in usually has lots of cover. Flippng a jig or worm can be deadly. I had a 8 bass 40 lb sack once flipping a dark blue ringworm in brush on the run out at Tunica.That was pre-Casino. Good luck post the results. Fish2win

[bamabassman]

i like the little islands myself there buddy. maybe the buzzbait early in the morning. and where the other river comes into it. other than that.....i would have to say a rattlin trap.

[lowrider]

Originally Posted by doc

Anyone else take a look at the map and offer any advice/tips. New water scares me, plus im dealing with the backseat in lowriders new boat now. I havn't landed a fish from the back in the damn thing yet.

thats true...how many times have we been out in it now? gotta be at least 3 or 4 huh? no better time to come out of a slump than tournament day.

by the way guys, if it helps we may only be looking at a small area of "deep water" its most likely gonna average 10 to 12 ft with 16 to 18 being the deepest

[doc]

Well, the water was 10+ft above normal. The rock dike at the end of the lake was completely upderwater, me and low rider almost tore a foot off . Ended up fishing what was supposed to be the islands, wich was just brush sticking out of 5ft of water.

I caught 3 early, 2 more around 11 for a limit of 5. I just could not put a bigger kicker fish in the boat. Ended up finishing 3rd. Lowrider had a rougher day, he boated 1 fish.



And for the record I did not have to sacrafice a hog. I did spin around 3 times and step onto the boat backwards before launch tho.

[lowrider]

and i really did want to push him in the lake !