How will water color affect the bottom conditions of any body of water that you fish?
Will a change in water color possibly affect which structures in that body of water are productive in the future?
While a light yellow green and a dingy clear allow similar amounts of light to penetrate, each one will produce two completely different bottom conditions. What are the possibilities?
Fish do not change their basic instincts from one body of water to another. They use structure NO MATTER WHAT. While fishing in the Gulf of Mexico I had an interesting experience. I was approximately 3 miles off shore trolling. Now I was trolling where "the fish were running at" after about 2-3 miles of this I came to the realization that they were not there. They may have been yesterday but not on that day. What happened where did they go? It so happens that there are breaklines in the ocean just like freshwater. These just happen to be way deeper and much more spread out. Being that the fish had been on their way towards the coast not away, I went towards the coast as well. Watching the water depth is the only reason that I caught fish. I found a very nice breakline and was able to troll it and make a very nice catch. So why did I say all this. 1) I like talking about how spoonplugging works EVERYWHERE. 2) BAYS: Water color, the bottom of the ocean is a great place to see the affects that water color has on the bottom. You have to stay away from the beach though since its artificial. In places where there is a great expanse of deep open water, the bottom tends to be cleaner but muck is still a problem due to light penetration and pollution. In the areas that are shallower and have no fresh water flowing directly into them tend to be mucky, grassy, nasty. Pain to fish with a tide. On the other hand the areas that have a supply of fresh water, were a creek dumps into a bay, have some sort of a clean spot. I believe this is caused by water color alone. The water color due to the creek is better and you can tell. So there is a spot with less muck, less grass growing, this is a BREAK on the bottom and in the water column made by water color. There could be numerous other ways to explain it but this one I saw with my own eyes on tons of different places and different bodies of water. The same thing can exists in fresh water. Observations of water color can make or break a fishing day or lifetime on the water if never observed and how it affects all phases of fishing success.
So what about the questions above?
Joshua Douglas Travis