Now I've seen everything!!!

A lake I've fished for decades has it's water lowered 6' so home owners can work on their docks. In the past, fishing was tough seeing as how the usual areas dried up - literally. So, after picking light lures to pad pockets and catching gill and crappie, I decided to cast to bare, no-vegetaion flats only a foot or so deep.

Thank goodness for sonar because in different areas schools of fish were on the screen in less than 3.5'! If I see any fish on the sonar, I anchor and fan cast the area. Sho enough, fish were in many shallow areas - some schooled like in the case of white pearch. I caught crappie, yellow and white perch, sunfish and bass ranging in size from mini to med.

Of course, soft plastics ruled with 1/64 oz / #8 or #6 hook necessary to catch the tail nippers which blasted lures many times on the same retrieve - even right at the boat!!
Yall know me - Mr Innovation if you please and yesterday was no different. Forget curl tails - fish only attacked straight thin tails (like Bob sell the molds of).

In some cases, sonar showed fish being caught in less than 2'!! Here are some examples:

Attachment 470670
Attachment 470671 Attachment 470672 Attachment 470674 Attachment 470675
Attachment 470673Attachment 470676 Attachment 470677 Attachment 470678

Example of a shallow area fish got caught. The shallow water flats come way out.
Attachment 470679



I figured that fish may react better using chartreuse and as usual I add a bit of orange dye - a superstition I won't apologize for believing fish may interpret that combo as a yellow perch. (Yeah right, and Santa Claus exits! LOL)

Side note:
The drain where the lake is emptying contains two long parallel concrete walls where the water drains super fast. Even after all these years, I never knew where the lake was drained. Curious about the swirling water at the entrance, I got too close, was pulled me in and the 10' boat got stuck. The flow threatened to pull the boat to who knows where? The boat was at an angle to the entrance but too powerful a flow to pull my boat away to open water.

Luckily a how owner came to my rescue and pulled the bow of the boat to the side so I could get in and escape. The water will continue to flow out for another week making fish locations even more interesting.

But one good thing: I documented structue I never knew existed and caught fish off it: steep drops from 3' into 8', humps in the middle of no where! Hey, 35 fish in a few hours, well worth the scare! I'll be fishing the lake's shallow water pattern from Tues - the weekend and won't see a motor boat or jet ski until the lake level rises in Oct. AHHH, peace and quiet!

fish in a barrel syndrome is a good thing , less water makes them easier to find for sure :cheers2

Sounds like a good time to me. Concentrated fish are always a fun time. The river I fish gets real slow and even runs backwards sometimes in the dry season. The fish treat the river more like a lake and inhabit structure that they normally avoid because of river flow. Fish are lazy and hide from the flow most times but low and slow water is another thing. Glad they worked for you.

Sorry for all the typos. It was 2:30 am when I wrote it and sleeping was tough with all the aches and pains from trying to prevent the boat from being carried to who knows where. This week should be very interesting.

Beautiful pan, and great to take advantage of a rare opportunity.
Bob

Sounds like quite the adventure. May even find some old lures hanging out on the now exposed structure

A birds eye review will learn you a bunch in a hurry;)

:ThumbsUp

Great day of fishing

Today and yesterday on the same lake totaled 152 fish : many crappie - some 13", yellow and many white perch, sunfish and small bass.