There is a lake near me where I struggle every fall. It is a shallow muddy lake, average depth 5ft, the deepest spots are 18ft. There are areas with sand and a couple rocky spots but the lake is mostly silted in and weeds everywhere. The lake is a man made reservoir, it was made by flooding farmland and marshland. There is very little in the way of structure on this body of water.
I do well earlier in the year and in the summer docks hold fish, but every fall the shallow weeds die off, the algae makes visibility poor (2ft), and the fish seem to disappear.
The whole lake is like a bowl, no quick transitions, all gradual contours. The lake holds good lmb and smb. There is a river draining the end of the lake, it is smaller, clean water, silted with a main channel that winds and is maybe 10ft deep. There are no shad, only perch, sunfish, rock bass and crappie. This is a northern lake, fishing takes a dump once water temps drop into the mid fifties and below.
What would you do to approach a lake like this? What baits would you try? I'm putting the time on this fall at the expense of some great fishing on other nearby lakes, I guess I'm stubborn and I really want to figure this lake out.