by Bruce Middleton, July 08, 2007

The way to dissect and find bass on a lake you have never fished before…

Now to be honest I was going to wait until fall to file this story with Mike to be put on the site so everybody could read it but I have received so much mail about how to fish a new lake or what lure to use on a new lake I have decided to print this story now. I hope it helps those of you who have written me asking how to fish a new lake and what lures to use. I always try to answer each mail I get but for each one I get I imagine there are two who didn’t write. So here you go. Bruce.

Ok, lets start out this article by saying you are at the launch of a lake that you have never fished before. The lake is about 250 acres big so there is plenty of water and there are houses around ¾’s of the lake. The other ¼ is undeveloped and it has trees right up to the shoreline. The lake is roughly “S” shaped so you can assume that there are at least two points in the middle of the lake.

So what should you do? Well you could keep a set distance from the shore and circle the lake working the docks around the houses and any cover around the undeveloped part of the lake. This would be what many bass angles would do and they would probably catch a few bass if any were to be had. But this is far and away not the wisest way to go about fishing a new lake.

Now before coming to this lake you should have done a lot of homework or what some people call bass reconnaissance. You should have gotten on the Internet and looked for a couple different maps of this lake. Why a couple of maps and not just one? Well the lakes up here change because of earthquakes and other natural and man made phenomena, plus some of the topographical maps can be very old and do not include such things as old railroads and dams that have been put on the lake as well as roads and large culverts that run right next to the lake. The feeder and out let creek channels change and I never put complete trust in just one source. Also the feeder creek channels are very seldom if ever shown in any detail. So, after you find a couple of maps, compare them and see what differences they show and mark one up to show all the information that all the maps display. This will give you the best map possible. Also try to find an Ariel view of the lake as this shows some features topographical maps don’t show. They can show roads right next to lake where they might have put in a rip-rap wall and culverts. They also sometimes show inlet creek channels if the lake is shallow as well as any large weed beds and lily pad fields if the resolution is good.

Next you should go to several bass fishing web sites and go to the chat rooms and lake report areas and see what other people have to say about the lake you are about to fish. And don’t just get the current information. Go back and get a complete history of the lake so you have an idea of the seasonal movements of the bass in the lake and the type of lures that were used. The Internet is a powerful tool for this type of information and it should be used to it’s fullest. And again, don’t use just one source, use two or more and compare the information for the most complete picture.

With the map in hand, all the background information in your head and once on the lake, it is an easy task to mark areas that have weed beds, lily pads, and docks. It is easy to see points with the depth finder and mark them too. You will have to spend some time before fishing, running a criss-cross pattern at both ends of the lake though, looking for the feeder creek channel at one end and the deep water and any channels at the other end and the points in the middle. And it is a smart idea to continue the criss-cross pattern along the weed beds, to find out how deep the weeds go before they stop growing. This is called defining the edge. Look for any holes or humps in the lake too and mark their location on the map. At the end of an hour or more, you should have a fairly accurate map of the lake, that shows where the bass may be during any part of their seasonal movements, the best places to fish during each season and any hidden honey holes that no one else knows about. You also know what lures and bait work best on this lake and what colors to use, or at least not to use, all gleaned from the Internet.

Now say, before coming to this lake you tried to find a topographical map of the lake bottom but none was to be had. This means you have no idea how deep the lake is, where any deep spots are, how far the points run out or how the edge of the lake drops off from the shore. All in all this lake is just a big question mark to you.

If this was a new lake to me I would spend any where from 1 to 3 hours making a map of the lake’s 12 foot level, 18 foot level and then do a criss-cross pattern over the lake looking for humps, creek channels and the like. Now creek channels are easy to find, as all you have to do is look to see how the lake is fed. Once the feeder creek is found, you follow the channel with the depth finder for as long as you can until it peters out.

The 12 and 18-foot depth contours show you where the drop-offs are and where the points begin and end. It also tells you where the weed lines are apt to end, which tells you the outside edge depth to fish when you fish any weed bed. This is because most weed lines up here stop somewhere between 10 and 18 feet depending on the clarity of the water. You can of course use any numbers you like other than 12 and 18. Say the lake seems shallow to you and has very dirty water, so you adjust the map pattern to 9 and 14 feet. It is all arbitrary and you have to decide what works best for any given situation. You also run the criss-cross pattern at about half or ¾ speed of the gas motor so as to finish in as short a time as possible. You don’t just troll around the lake at a slow speed, as this would take all day.

The criss-cross pattern tells you where such items as where the lily pad fields are, deep holes in the lake and any humps or islands are in the lake. And if there is an island in the lake it gives you the contour lines for it as well as points, holes and humps near it. It also gives you information like where the deepest part of the lake is, if there is a dam on the lake and where the sides of the dam rise up. These rises are very important to note and understand as they can hold many, many bass. They are after all, points.

Now lets say that you have spent two hours making your map and it shows the two points, a small channel at the shallow end of the lake (north) where the creek comes into it and the lake has a gentle slope to it except for a portion of the undeveloped part of the lake. The deepest part of the lake is at the south end by the boat ramp and a creek leads out of the lake at the south end but there is no channel that shows up on the depth finder. There are weed beds along the west and east sides and a lily pad field at the north end by the feeder creek.

Now you have a complete view of the lake. You can see where the bass will move to during the seasonal movements and you can see that the weed beds and the lily pads will likely hold the majority of the bass in this lake. A few bass will be found around the docks and some will be found along the steep drop off slope by the undeveloped area. So you should concentrate your efforts in and around the grass and weed beds for the best chance of catching the biggest and most bass. You will be fishing in about 20 feet of water and casting into 15 feet of water in order to cover the 18 food mark where the weed line ends or the opposite, sitting in 15 feet of water and casting into 20 feet and working the lure up the weed line. You can fish with a crank bait the color of the baitfish in the lake or a generic color and they are deep divers. You can use spinner baits of the same colors or you can use top waters, frogs, swim baits, a split shot rigged tube or floating worms, fishing the top of the weed beds from 15 feet into the shoreline. Remember too what you found on the Internet and what colors worked the best in the past on this lake and use those too.

Do you see the difference it makes to spend an hour or two making a map of a new lake? It can tell where to fish, how deep to fish, what lures to use and in what kind of surroundings your going to be fishing in. And in the end you will be rewarded with more and larger bass.

Now it is a commonly known fact that bass live and hunt at a given depth of water and that they change that depth of water very slowly. They don’t just rise up from 18 feet to 8 feet and go into the shallows and start looking for minnow to eat. No, they start looking for minnows at 18 feet and stay there. They may move to 16 feet over the course of a day but they move very slowly when changing depths unless they are scared or chased into deep water. And even then they are more apt to suspend out in open water at the depth they were at. This also applies to the spawn when bass begin to move out of the cold deep to the points and then the spawning flats. Points are ideal for this, as the bass can rise slowly yet have an escape route to deep water. Now you begin to understand just how important points are to bass. Now points come in all sizes and they don’t have to be huge to hold a lot of bass.

Take the area around the undeveloped part of the lake. This part of the lake has a very steep dropping contour. But on both sides of this contour will be places where the contour is more drawn out. This is a point and one will be on both sides of the steep slope. They can be gentle or abrupt but they are points nonetheless. Grubs and other plastics worked up or down this incline is a great way to catch bass.

Now to say to fish the weed beds is kind of an off-handed statement to make. To be truthful it would all depends on the season, the water temperature and the sky conditions as to where you should fish this imaginary lake. For instance, if it was spring and the water was still quite cold it would make sense to fish the deep end of any points slowly with jigs and plastics. A spinner bait would also be a good choice too, slow rolled or helicoptered up and down off and up from the bottom.

If it was pre-spawn I would be fishing the weed bed lines, points and looking hard at the shallow end of the lake and shoreline for any sign of beds. And if the spawn had started I would of course be fishing the beds along the shoreline and in the shallow end of the lake. Post spawn would again find me back at the points and the weed beds looking for the bass as the recuperate after the spawn.

In summer the obvious choices would be docks, weed beds, lily pads, points and the deep end of the lake as well as the sharp drop off area. These all offer something unique to the bass. Some offer shade while some offer deep water.

Fall and the coldwater turn over would find most bass again in the shallows during the day feeding ravenously and suspending in open water when they aren’t. The shallow end of the lake would also be the warmest water in the lake because of the feeder creek. Many small prey fish will eventually move up into this creek and so will a lot of bass if it is big enough. It is better that the cold water of the lake and it offers more oxygen than the lake and the decaying matter in the lake that is eating a great portion of the oxygen in it up. Those bass left in the lake will be outside the weed line during the night and after the sun comes up they will move into it to hunt before returning to open water before the sun goes down.

In winter the bass will be found in the deepest parts of the lake all except those few who have found the perfect place to live. These places may be in a creek channel or under an old tree stump. For whatever reason these bass will live there all year round. You have to remember that a bass is territorial and lives, breeds and usually dies all within an area of less than 300 yards. And in big shallow lakes a bass may have no alternative but to live year round in 12 or 14 feet of water. The real reason they will stay there too is availability of food. Now while a bass’s metabolism may slow down so his intake of food is only 1/5th that of normal, the bass must still eat. So the bass in an area where he has a steady supply of food, the water depth can vary drastically where they spend the winter. Now under normal circumstances a bass must eat about 3% of its body weight every day in order to grow normally. But in winter a bass can slow its intake to 1/5th of that and still get by without any harm to itself or growth rate.

Now on this imaginary new lake we are fishing, it is important to establish what kind of prey fish live in the lake that the bass feed on. This in kind sets the stage for the color type and size of lures we will use to take any bass out of it. The first thing you should do is to ask anyone you know or anyone you meet at the boat ramp what kind of prey fish live in the lake if you didn’t find this out on the Internet. Are there Sunfish, Blue Gill, Crappie, Perch or another type of baitfish present? If you can establish the baitfish colors you will way ahead of the game. If you can’t find out what kind of baitfish then it it’s easy just to fall back on generic fish colors and forage colors. All this assumes you have no computer or had no time to look up the lake and gather any information about the lake. By generic fish colors I mean silver and black. A good example would be a Rapala Original Floating Minnow in silver. This is a generic minnow stick bait that looks like any type of minnow you care to use. Generic forage colors for jigs and plastics would be black/blue, black/brown/, black/orange, green, cotton candy, June bug and pumpkin seed. These colors are great on jigs, tubes, worms and other plastic baits. Standard top water plugs, white and black buzz baits and spinner baits are all generic colors and can be used at any time. Crawfish colors and patterns too work great for just about any lure or bait also.

So now we have our map of the lake, we know what season it is and we have the water temperature to help guide us and we have either generic or specific colors of fish lures to fish with. So what is left? Just the desire to catch bass and a lot of them. And the next time we come back to this lake we will be ready to fish it no matter the time of day or season.


bpmiddleton@peoplepc.com