Transitional Water Fishing
Yesterday I again had to fall back on hunting solitary fish in a tournament.
Picked up a 5.55 (well actually 5.49) doing this for 2nd place big fish.
That was not my original plan of attack.We located a back water with schools of bait fish moving everywhere first
thing in the morning. By everwhere I mean it. In most of the area at any
given time we could see atleast 20 different smalls schools and two or three
large schools of bait fish swimming along and rippling the surface. NOTHING
WAS CHASING THEM. No disturbances, no minnows jumping out of the water. I
saw a total of about three surface strikes on the water all morning. We
worked around the schools with topwater baits. We worked below the schools
with crank baits, and as a fall back we worked the structure and shore cover
near where schools of bait fish were roaming with both topwaters and
flipping baits. The water in that area was a little muddier than normal,
but visibility was still over a foot. It was much better than the main
river. Where I actually wound up finding a few fish was in what I call transitional
water. Places where there was a distinct color line between the main river
(very muddy) and a backwater or channel opening. The fish were usually a
ways back. In each area we only picked up one fish and then nothing. It was a very tough day. Post frontal, muddy water, and in the morning the
water rose a bit, but then it was falling the rest of the day as dams
upriver had cut flow to compensate for the rain water from local
thunderstorms that had dumped water into the river between them and us. While I did catch one good size fish, I was disappointed that I didn't meet
my goal. My goal in any tournament is to weigh in a limit. We only had
four keeper fish for about 10.2.
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