Bass Fishing: A Great Crank Bait for Murky Water

Over the passed week, I've caught three different bass on the same crank bait.  That's fantastic consistency, especially for our turbid water here in West Texas!  A picture's worth a thousand words, so here they are.

That's an RC Series 2 crank bait.  The pattern  on the side is actually a crayfish, which makes the lure all the more appealing.  Tight lines!

Bass Fishing: Picking the Right Color

When it comes to lures, the variety can be overwhelming.  There are big lures and small lures that are designed to imitate almost anything a bass might possibly eat.  The color combinations are endless.

When you think about color, don't worry about specific colors.  It's not about green vs red.  It's actually about the clarity, or lack of it, in the body of water you're fishing.

Bass have great eyesight.  If the water's clear, they'll be able to see a lot of detail. In that situation, your lure needs to look similar to the actual prey that a bass would attack.  In the picture below, the crank bait has the same color as an actual gizzard shad.

You'll notice that the water in the background above is murky.  I might very well have caught more than that one bass if I had gone a different color direction.  Here's a closer look at our water in this area.

You can see that with only a few inches of this murky water, the bottom is no longer visible.  You can't see very far off at all.  Guess what?  Neither can the bass ... at least not well enough to distinguish one color from another.

In this world of murk, what a bass most likely sees are silhouettes.  Regardless of the color on these crank baits, the silhouette will be the right shape.  How visible the silhouette is will depend ENTIRELY on the color.

In murky water, bright colors make the lure visible to the bass.  What we see is a brightly-colored, ridiculous object.  What the bass sees in murky water is an outline that's brigher than the rest of its world, and that outline has the shape of a fish.  Score!

Look at that bright red crank bait!  It delivered with that little bass and then with a much bigger one.

I literally caught them within five minutes of each other!  So if your water's a murky mess like ours in West Texas ... think bright.  Think neon even!  The same is true for your plastics like worms, etc.

All fish were released unharmed.  Tight lines!

Big Mudcat

When I think mudcat, I think small.  That's for good reason.  Most will not exceed two pounds.  However, there's an exception to every rule.

That bottom bullhead was the largest.  I don't think either of them broke the two pound marker, but they were fun to catch.

One other thing to note, the largest one hung me up on something toward the bottom of the creek, probably a tree root.  I fought the snag for a few minutes, and I could still feel this fish on the line.

The thought finally occurred to me to let the fish do the work.  I gave the line some slack, and voila!  The fish swam out from behind whatever had the line snagged.  Then I was able to land the fish.

The baits were worms and hotdog weenies.  All fish were released.  Tight lines!

Small Creeks Run Deep

When you see a small creek like this, you might be tempted to write it off.

You can see that the creek is not very wide, and the cattails give the impression that the water is not deep.

Here's the thing about creeks.  They can be deep.  Much like rivers, there's also one side that's deeper than the other.  In this case, it was the near side of the bank, and I measured off about five feet of water.  The most shallow part was actually the far side, over by the cattails.

When a creek has that much water, it's time to go fishing.  My daughter had worms, and I had hotdog weenies.  We caught some FISH!

Don't ever write a water hole off.  Release some line from your pole into the water.  See how much line it takes to hit the bottom.  This gives you a rough depth estimate.  Remember, it only takes a little bit of water to conceal a BIG fish!

The turtle and all of the fish were released unharmed, including the fish that bled a bit from the gills.

Tight lines!

Video: Fishing with Hotdog Weenies

http://youtu.be/6MGsCnraQGA

Lubbock County Fishing by Species

In the City

Bass
Andrews
Buddy Holly
Canyon Lake #2
Canyon Lake #3
Conquistador
Dunbar Historic Lake
Huneke (War Memorial)
I-27 & S. Loop 289
Leftwich
Mackenzie
Mae Simmons
Remington
Stone Lake
Tadpole Lake

Bluegill
All locations.

Carp
All locations.

Channel Catfish
(Bass lakes plus the following.)
Buster Long
Casey
Elmore
Higgonbotham
Hoel
Legacy
Maxey
McCullough
Ribble

Crayfish
All bass locations.

Crappie (by report)
Andrews
Canyon Lake #3
Conquistador
Dunbar
Huneke
Leftwich
Mackenzie
Mae Simmons

Shad
Conquistador
Buddy Holly
Canyon Lake #2
Mackenzie
Mae Simmons
Dunbar
Elmore

Sunfish
All locations.
NE side of Hoel for orange-spotted sunfish

In the County

Buffalo Springs Lake, all species

Don't Forget the Crappie House!

I think that sometimes we as fishermen get too big for our britches.  We start to think we're "above" certain things ... like the crappie house.

I went fishing at night.  As you can see, I had the place to myself.  It was well lit, and it was raining.  Night fishing with the sound of rain on a tin roof.  Does it get any better?  Well ... there's only one way.

As usual, the fish was released.  Don't snub the crappie house!  

Tight lines!