spawning fish in dirty water

How would you approach fishing for bedding fish in dirty water. I'm sure they will be bedding very very soon. Been catching nice fish with bloody fins and tails, so know they are making beds. Mostly along pea gravel/rock banks in about 3-4ft of water on cranks. My guess is the crankbait bite is going to shut down soon. Was thinking of tossing a t-rigged lizard and tube some tomorrow morning early, along with the crankbait and spinnerbait reaction bites.

How would you work the fish? Not really been catching any dinks, even though I think they are mostly males. Have caught some better fish out a bit deeper, which I'm guessing are females, but they are few and far between on bites at least.

Where I fish on the chesapeake its rare to see the beds. What I do is drag a texas rigged worm and hope it goes through a bed. A spinnerbait will also work and you can cover more ground faster.

A pop-r around stumps bushes and anything else in shallow water. Earlier this year we fished a tourny we caught them pitching stumps. On 2 occasions we caught 2 fish off the same stump within 2 minutes.

Shaky head :thumb up2:

Wacky Rig Senko, lizard, craw. Spinnerbait or pop r early.

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Originally Posted by chadku

Wacky Rig Senko, lizard, craw. Spinnerbait or pop r early.

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wacky rigged senko hasn't been catching many...fished it the other night for a good bit. Caught fish in the same areas later on with a crankbait.

are you actually bed fishing? can you see the fish on the bed, or only fishing an area where there are spawners? If just fishing the area I would throw spinnerbait, horny toad, shallow crankbait, etc. and hope to bring it across the bed.

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Originally Posted by blckshp55

are you actually bed fishing? can you see the fish on the bed, or only fishing an area where there are spawners? If just fishing the area I would throw spinnerbait, horny toad, shallow crankbait, etc. and hope to bring it across the bed.

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No, not actually bed fishing. Visibility is about 6"-1ft where I'm fishing, so no way to bed fish. Caught 5 or 6 keepers the other night (3 days ago), mostly 2lb fish, and all of them had really bloody fins. So I know they are making beds. Been catching them for the last week and a half with torn up fins, but looked like they had really starting working hard by their fins the last time out. I've been mostly catching fish on a bandit 200 bumped along bottom. Kinda getting bored with that. I'm thinking of throwing a t-rigged lizard tomorrow on a light weight.

I fan fish the bedding areas with a crawfish colored Trap, fast and deadly. Cover more ground with a trap.

If they are bloody they are farther along than you might think. As far as fishing for them. good luck. Its painful to make repetitive pitches to where you think there is a bed. Its hard enough when you can see them. I would fish a spinnerbait and pitch to where there is obvious cover like stumps

chatterbait, most of the indiana and illinois lakes are pretty much done

If you know the lake then you can target the aresa with a better bottom or the areas that have shallow submerged cover just below the water. Bass will still gravitate to these areas when the water is dirty. That is why during droughts, low water and drawdowns it can really pay off to take pictures and get to know the lake better. That way you can almost just blindcast in those spots and catch them.

Come on everyone if there are bass shallow...bust out the frog rod and watch them kill it..if fished right!!!