water color / muddy water

[Neil Toland]

Most likely a silly question but did Buck Perry ever address muddy water? I deal with it every spring and don’t deal with it well.

[John Bales]

He does talk about it. Look at it as just another water condition change. It takes time for it to become stable , just like any other change in weather or water. John

[Neil Toland]

Thanks John. Guess that is they way to think of it.

[Team9nine]

Interestingly, the words "mud" or "muddy" only appear 8 times in the green book. As pertains to your specific question, there are two references in the book on "muddy" water clarity that is touched upon:

"Most of the time you will be faced with too much clarity. But, in some sections of the country, at certain periods of the year, you may face water which is too muddy. The entire lake may be affected, but still, some sections will have a greater degree of clarity (less muddy) than others. Most of the time the problem is not finding waters with more clarity, but rather finding the more dingy areas. Your selection of water color will have a definite bearing on your catches. It could spell the difference between catching fish or not catching fish. It will determine whether or not fishing is easy or tough...

In studying water color, you should be aware that most of the time your main concern will be one of too much clarity. In some sections, during certain seasons of the year, you may be faced with water being too muddy and you will need to look for water with more clarity. But, most of the time you will be faced with finding an area with dingy water. Your past studies should give you clues as to what color of water you would normally expect to find in certain areas. Now your actual observation can verify or disprove your pre-diagnosis."

[Neil Toland]

Thank you Team9nine. You have a searchable digital green book to find those references or just an excellent memory?

My home water is a river and I experience an extended period muddy water in the spring. Used to just last a week or two. Now sometimes it's the end of June or even into July before clearing up. Just not successful at all when it's that way and wondering what I can do to change things. There's always some backwater areas that are decent fishing with clearer water but it is slough fishing and the backwaters have become full of bass boats even on weekdays. Can be fun but seldom catch my target fish - Walleyes.

If I can see my cavitation plate I consider the water extremely clear. Just having to drive a lot farther to get to decent fishing.

Thanks again

[Team9nine]

Thank you Team9nine. You have a searchable digital green book to find those references or just an excellent memory?

My home water is a river and I experience an extended period muddy water in the spring. Used to just last a week or two. Now sometimes it's the end of June or even into July before clearing up. Just not successful at all when it's that way and wondering what I can do to change things. There's always some backwater areas that are decent fishing with clearer water but it is slough fishing and the backwaters have become full of bass boats even on weekdays. Can be fun but seldom catch my target fish - Walleyes.

If I can see my cavitation plate I consider the water extremely clear. Just having to drive a lot farther to get to decent fishing.

Thanks again

Lol, yes, a digital copy that is searchable. Comes in handy.

I do some walleye stuff, but the local "pros" I'm friends with and talk to have stated the walleye act a lot like the bass in high, muddy water, and that is go to the bank. They actually slow down and flip them out of flooded shoreline cover and tight to riprap banks and such, as long as it is out of the direct heavy current. Sometimes they use artificials, and sometimes they use live bait, but almost always ono some type of weedless jig head. It sounds like the walleye also suspend higher than bass when this occurs, so you just have to slow way down and flip baits right on their head, while figuring out at what depth they are sitting. I know from tracking studies done on our largest and best walleye reservoirs, when the lake comes up and floods the standing timber, the walleyes move right into it in the same areas they were already hanging around before the rise. They also don't leave those areas until the water recedes a good bit. One year they stayed there the entire summer in less than 6'-7' of water. Might be worth a try over there.

[Neil Toland]

I've heard / read / been told the same thing about fishing extremely shallow in muddy and fast current situations. Have half heartedly tried without much success... this year I'll just force myself to try harder and see what happens.

In the spring immediately after the spawn I actually do fish for walleyes pretty much that way - short casts and flipping to wood and lay downs and eddys below wingdams. Have done fair to poorly but it doesn't last long. Obviously not fishing in the right place - or whole heartedly enough.

Where did you come up with a digital Green Book? I have thought about trying to scan the book along with the study material and put in a word doc or something. Is that what you did? I'd think there'd be a market for a CD with all that on it.

Appreciate your suggestions and I'll keep working at it.

[Geezer]

Hi Neil

the muddy water .
I also have found fish shallow .
The first time I took my buddy Ralph to my favorite power plant on the Ohio he caught the biggest hybrid striper ever from my boat about 28"... in about 1' of water right next to the bank on a 1/8 oz jig. I was used too catching fish in 6' or greater. visibility was less the 2" ...too thick to drink but too thin to plow.
A lake nearby is stocked with Saugeye and sometimes it is quite muddy. sometimes I think maybe the fish are right in with the cattails. I have given it a few half hearted attempts with little success. But that mud sure gets me discouraged before I even start.

Don't even get me going about the mud on the ramp when the water drops.

[Neil Toland]

Yeah Geezer, I can certainly relate. Around here the saying is "It's too thick to navigate but too thin to plow" (from an old John Hartford tune I do believe). So, I know exactly what you're talking about. I am going to try much shallower this flood/mud season though and see what happens.

[Fran Myers]

This is a tricky subject. Because sometimes water color that would be perfect could be too muddy for the fish based on the normal water color. For example...

I spent many years fishing the Bass Islands. Normally the water color is really clear. MANY times I flew an airliner over the islands and saw the structures I fished from 20,000 feet. But that’s the fishes normal so I think the fish behave the same with the movements however not as shallow as a dark water lake.

But in the Spring when we went, it never failed that the weather churned up the sand and mud so bad that it turned the water a perfect water color in any other situation. The fish disappear because it’s not their normal.

Over the years we went we never got the clear normal color that generates the biggest catches. I realized that the question is not what the color is but rather ‘How Long’ the water was that color. If it’s at least two weeks, then we just fish as we always did but we rarely got the big schools in the shallows.

Now if you have a very dark muddy river like the Maumee River or the Muddy Mississippi things can get very challenging most of the time.

[Steve Craig]

Neil,
Back before my son died, we would fish a Lake near Flagstaff called Lake Mary. It was just a Northern Pike lake, with a few small Walleyes sprinkled in. There are several humps all over this lake and catching those pike were easy on them and their connected breaklines. This one year, we had alot of wind for days on end, and the lake was turned into Chocolate Milk and stayed that way for several weeks.
We fished all those good humps and breaklines, just like always with zero success. Finally we went to the shallows and started casting swimbaits and wow! Pike were everywhere and in water less than 2 feet deep, all over the lake. We had a ball that day and it is a day I will cherish until the day I die.
Like a dummy, I skipped the shallows and went right to the deeper stuff. Buck always said it is a sin to fish below the fish too. Im glad I finally did check the shallows.
It appeared to me that the water was actually somewhat clearer in that 2-3 foot zone.
There was this guy that was using a Fly rod and was wading those shallows when we first got there, and i thought he was crazy. At the local gas station, I saw he had a Fly fishing for Pike video on the wall, and I recognized him. So I bought the video, and was amazed at how many pike he caught there in that 3 week period and never had to fish deeper than 5 feet. During one of his trips he caught the new state record pike that year.
I havent been back to that lake as it is just too painful for me, but time does help to heal and i may go back there this year.
Like Buck always said, fish can adapt to a CHANGED situation with time, but they have a hard time adapting to a CHANGING situation.
Given my situation above, you might want to go very shallow and at least check it out more.
Stay well my friend,
Steve

[Neil Toland]

Thanks Fran and Steve. All comes back to STABILITY and water conditions as John mentioned I guess. When the water gets mudded up overnight along with huge increases in flow I shouldn't expect much I guess. Just that I know the fish are there and still eating and it's bugged me for years.

[DougBush]

Buck showed me what to do in a lot of situations where we think there is too much muddy water. I'd say around 1966 on Lake Lanier above Atlanta....way-y-y-y up in the Chestatee river.
He said, "we'll look for the points and bars that have about 8 inches of clear water right up close to the bank. Throw the lure right up on the bank and then drag it off into that little clear "edge". (I was skeptical)
As usual the fish cooperated and we slaughtered them.
"It's pure depth & speed control. Just another way to present the lure and adapt to the weather and water conditions that exist. You better not get married to it though"...he said.

[Neil Toland]

Thanks for sharing that story Doug.

[John Bales]

Conditions change. A weekend warrior may not get on the water enough to see or understand the changes in all the variables in fishing. This fall, I completely stopped catching two groups of adult bass that had been money all summer long. A spot a couple hundred yards away started producing big bass where they had not been all summer long. After thinking things through of what happened to these two spots and the change in the weed condition which held the fish and offered them a place to stay away from the northern pike, it was obvious that they had moved. This is not normal but if a bass can move several miles from a deep channel up into a feeder creek to spawn, they would have no problem moving 100 yards to a different structure that suits them better or simply allows them to survive. We can never tell a fish where they have to be or what it might take to catch them on any particular day. We need to be efficient at trolling and casting in order to get the answers, and fish enough to understand what fish do and what you and I must do to catch em. John