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Muddy Water During The Spawn- Part 1

by Kevin Patton

This 20-inch Newton keeper bit a Picasso junebug jig with a black and blue plastic trailer in shallow, muddy water.

It's time. It's early April and that means a trip to Newton Lake is on the calendar.

Tony Lynn and I began our annual bass fishing trip mid-morning on April 8, 2008 by heading up the cold arm of the lake in search of the bruiser bass that live there in impressive numbers.

Newton Lake is reinforcing it's reputation as a premiere bass lake in Illinois and is attracting attention from avid bass fishermen from adjoining states. We saw rigs from Indiana, Missouri, and Kentucky during our trip. Therefore, it is best to plan your trip during the week if possible.

Two things were different at Newton this time versus our recent trips. The water level was higher and it was very muddy.

Usually, water clarity during springtime ranges from one to two feet. Due to record rainfall, we found no area of the lake during our entire trip where you could see a white spinnerbait more than 8 inches below the surface.

Tony caught this 19 1/2-inch keeper on a black and blue jig with a blue plastic trailer.

Water temperatures were fairly typical in the areas we fished, ranging from the upper fifties to upper sixties all week. Despite the new moon being on April 5 and another full moon not arriving until April 20, the water temperatures were right for some bass to try spawning.

We began in the largest cove on the east side of the cold arm of the lake, where we hoped to find clearer water. We tried spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, crankbaits, and jigs with no success.

The cold arm temperature was 58-59 degrees, so we decided to head to the warm water arm and try fishing in the mud.

There was an approaching storm front, so if fish weren't shallow to spawn we were hoping they would be shallow to feed.

We started fishing in a pocket of the third cove north of the boat ramp where the water temperature was 63 degrees.

This 5 1/2-pound bass also bit a jig pitched into shallow weeds in a south-facing pocket.

Pitching soft plastic baits and jigs to shoreline weeds brought us quick success as one of the first fish was a 20-inch bass caught on a 1/2 oz. junebug Picasso jig with a black/blue trailer.

We continued to fish the south-facing pockets in the major coves north of the boat ramp and caught bass from the weeds and shoreline grass. Wood cover didn't hold many bass compared to the vegetation.

During seven hours of fishing, we boated 14 fish, including five keepers that measured the lake minimum of 18 inches.

We had to move around a bit and try different baits, but eventually we got some fish to bite jigs.

The next morning, we were on the lake at 8 a.m. The storm front has passed and somehow the rain had miraculously missed us. We started fishing the same areas and baits as the previous day.

A junebug Picasso jig caught several big fish during the first day of our trip.

Since the fish weren't cooperating this morning, we made some adjustments. We moved from cove pockets to pockets on the main lake and we put down the jigs in favor of dark-colored, plastic stickbaits.

Normally, I would fish a big, thumping spinnerbait, a noisy, wide-wobbling crankbait, or even a jig in muddy water.

Fishing a Senko-type bait in muddy water would not have occurred to us, but a fisherman at the motel convinced us to give it a try. He had caught several keepers by wacky-rigging a junebug Senko.

Tony quickly connected with a 19 1/2-inch keeper on Big Bite Baits version of a Senko. He soon caught another keeper on the watermelon candy color.

On day two, we used Big Bite and Senko plastic stickbaits to catch most of our bass. This 19 1/2- inch fish bit a junebug color.

By days end, we had caught 19 bass with nine of them being keepers. Dark colors caught most the fish.

Five-inch black/blue fleck Yamamota Senkos fooled five of the biggest fish.

We used 3/0 and 4/0 weedless hooks place through the center of the baits. It might be worth experimenting with weighted, weedless hooks, but the slow fall of our baits was an advantage in the muddy water.

We noticed that most of our fish had bloody tails, so we knew some bass were still hanging in shallow weeds trying to spawn despite no full moon and the passage of a front.

Evidently, sometimes a suitable water temperature trumps the lack of a full moon and bad weather.

Tomorrow we would look for more gentle-sloping, south-facing pockets with weeds. We were impressed with the success of the soft plastic stickbaits in muddy water so we would start with that presentation.

Dark plastic stickbaits caught bass in shallow weeds, especially a black with blue fleck Senko (bottom).

Would the big bass hang shallow for three days in a row? If so, would they hit the jigs or soft plastic stickbaits or would we have to experiment with different baits?

See Part II to see how we did.