Finding The Best - Shallow Water Spots

This has been the best way for me over the years to find the best 3 spots on a lake to fish shallow. Pick just one lake until you have it mastered. The bite I was always looking for was on my Custom Spook and Custom Hank Parker Classic. On several occasions we would back up the Spook with the Fluke.

Your fish is more apt to stay in an area that has thick cover for a longer period of time. I have found shallow water spots in the past that I could count on if the water level was consistent year after year with heavy grass and hardwoods mixed.
- Start with the hard map of the lake. Pick you first series of spots which will be in your opinion the best 20 you can find on the map.
- I would pick all my spots as far away from boat traffic as possible.
- Most would be in the back 1/3 of creeks and coves.
- I would stop looking in those places when the water depth reached 8 ft. in the back of the coves during the summer months.
- The thicker the cover the better. Many times I would pull up on one of the marked spots to find no cover and immediately move on to the next one unless there was rocks on the shore; then I would give it about 15 mins. before leaving.
- Always mark the rip-rap bridges and railroad trestles for the Spook.
- The first hour of daylight is the most important hour. I would spend no more than 30 mins. on each spot and try to fish two or three spots each morning.
- It would take 7 trips to cover all the spots that I would have marked to fish.
- Out of these 20 spots expect to only find one good spot holding decent fish.
- Once finished fishing them over those 7 trips, then pick your second series of spots in order to find your second big fish hole. Then I would repeat to find the 3 best spot.
- After spending 3 weeks on my chosen lake I would hope to have what I considered the best 3 shallow water spots on the lake.

In fishing 3 spots on any given morning you may not get the big picture of what is really going on there at daylight because it will be late in the first hour or even into the second hour. Many times I would let the spinner bait and fluke tell me if this spot was worth coming back to the next morning and putting it first on the list at the break of day with a Spook. Nothing wrong with repeating a spot to be absolutely sure if it is holding fish.

On cloudy and drizzly mornings you will be able to cover some added spots before your bite moves back to the comfort zone which will help shorten the process of covering 60 spots on the lake.

Techniques:
- Spook:
Almost every big Bass which I have caught has come while the bait is sitting or right after making it do a 180 degree turn. Fish as heavy of cover as possible. Be patient and let it sit. Learn to make it do the "Dying Quiver" which is the 180 degree turns and let it sit some more. It must be breaking day light. I have had no success to mention in the dark or extremely low light with the spook.
- Fluke:
Many of my big stringers have come by backing up the Spook. Some days the strike just doesn't happen like it did the day before. This doesn't mean the bass are not excited to the top water action. They just don't want to break the surface even on a beautiful cloudy morning. When this happens walk the spook into the heavy brush or grass. All it takes is to just barely touch the limb on a bush or edge of a grass pod. Let the spook sit there and pick up the Fluke casting it close to the bush on slack line. I use a 1/32 oz. pinch bullet on the line next to the nose of the Fluke. I want the bait to spiral down like a dying bait fish. This is a excellent technique for your partner to participate in as you work the Spook and excite the bass. My partner has done the catching many times during these no blow up mornings.
- Spinner Bait:
I love the Classic. It has the lightest wire of all with a short arm. The Blades ride very close to the hook point which keeps it virtually snagless. It has a twisted line tie for strength of handling big Bass. I throw the 3/4 oz. Mann's Classic and change out the Ind. blade to a Copper hammered willow blade. I strip the paint drill eye sockets for 3D eyes and repaint the head if the paint melts. I like the head Silver Diamond Dusted anyway. I replace the skirt with Living Rubber that is Minnow scented and add Minnow extract every 15 mins. or so to leave a scent trail in the water. I have found this reduces short strikes and fish that follow your bait to the boat. It seems to sew up the deal on a huge Bass when it is very familiar with the smell of a Minnow. Throw the Hank Parker Classic in and around the heavy cover bumping it into everything you can find. Let the bait fall to the bottom when it hits heavy cover. Lift it off the bottom slowly not with the quick jerk that most use. Just a subtle, soft and slow movement after the fall has produced the best. Many fish have been caught rolling the bait along just under the surface where you can barely see the blades turning in extremely shallow water. Almost every huge Bass I have caught has been slow rolling the bait in 5 ft. of water. Fishing spinner baits deep is another whole ball game that I will discuss later.

Excellent Post

Do you fish these shallow water areas year round?

This is how I found them when I was fishing tournaments. I fished them year round and checked them every time on the water. I never beat them up and only took what I could catch on the first pass through them and left for the next one. By 9:00 each morning I was ready to move to the 3 Second Drop Spots which I will report on at another time. These are spots in 5 to 15 ft.. I looked for the second drop spots in the same areas as the shallow water spots; but most of the time the water was too shallow along the underwater creek banks and ditches to hold them tight. Many times the larger Bass would show up in the middle sections of the same coves and creeks for late morning fishing. Then by 11:00 we would move to our 3 Deep Water Spots if the stringer wasn't large enough and fish those until weigh-in.

In checking the shallow water spots during the week, if weather or water conditions was not right to produce large fish then we would go straight to the Second Drop Spots at day break and start there staying out of the shallows. Sometimes they were not producing there either: so we stayed on the 3 deep water spots all day long. I will discuss the Deep Water Spots at a later time also; giving all the info. I have on how we use to divide the lake in 3 levels and put together the day accordingly.

Wow. Great information that represents a lot of hard work.
Really appreciate you sharing.

Great Article Donald!
Thanks

Thanks for the excellent information.

I love the Classic spinnerbaits too. I bought all I could find many years ago when they became scarce.

Donald, thank you for sharing ,

Thanks, more excellent information as well

Interesting

Thanks Donald, for sharing your experience...nothing replaces experience and the knowledge it brings.

Thanks for sharing...subscribed

You just reconfirmed my beliefs on the best method to catch bass on the spinnerbait. Thanks!

" Lift it off the bottom slowly not with the quick jerk that most use. Just a subtle, soft and slow movement after the fall has produced the best "

Great info Donald. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks guys. It is my pleasure to share different fishing experiences that have worked for me. We are all still learning no matter how long we have been at this. If you have some shallow water experiences that have put some good fish in the boat and you know your hard work has payed off then we certainly want to hear about them. Trying something new that makes a difference is what it is all about.

I have one from Fork in Dec a few years back. After spending most of the day pitching jigs down mid to deep creeks I got a call from a buddy that had just launched. We had put two small fish in the boat all day on a black blue jig fishing all my "best stuff".

We were about ready to call it a day when my phone rang. We ran over to the area my buddies had started. As we idled over to them I see one of them holding up a four pounder. I thought, he's in 4' of water and its 48 degrees surface temp. That was luck.. I drop my TM and yell over to him. As we work down the bank toward him I pick up a spinnerbait and throw it at the dirt. A 5 pounder jumps on it!! That fish was in 2' of water in 48 degrees!!

Later back at LFM I talk to Richard McCarty and he tells me he has been smoking them all day in 2-5' on a Trap. I had been soaking a jig all day in 15-25 feet down the outside bends of creeks and had two small fish to show for my efforts.

The moral of the story. There are shallow fish year round to be caught. I have learned through the years that I cannot tell the fish where they are going to be. You catch them where you catch them.