The Spoonpluggers Forum

I have a few questions about water color.

Many of the mid-south lakes are flatland river impoundments lying in the Mississippi River valley. Down here the "river valley" is a plain a couple of hundred miles wide commonly called the "delta region."

The lakes were constructed mainly for flood control and were basically marsh and wooded land before impoundment. They are wide and shallow--relatively speaking.

The color of the water, due to wind, is usually the color of a cup filled with half coffee and half cream., or " light muddy tan." In these lakes, I've never seen any vegetation growing. They are mud bowls.

How should I interpret these waters by their color?

Ps: Sight fishing is something I know nothing about!!

If you can drop a white lure in the water and it is gone within a foot, you had better be fishing it. You may have some white sandy water color and if that is the case, you better be fishing them. Start with the 500's and go learn what is there. John

I remember back many years ago as a young man before I discovered what a spoonplug was, and the only good casting reel was a Pflueger Supreme, that in the winter months when the reservoirs muddied up we would catch loads of bass casting to the points with daredevil spoons and just dragging them along the bottom slowly. Sooner or later there would be a dull thud or the lure would just stop as if hitting a big rock and a hook set would reveal if the "rock" would pull back.
I always thought it was a stupid way to fish but it sure worked. And we were in water less than 10 feet most of the time. Often at that little clear spot (maybe 8 inches) from the muddy water to the bank the fish would be hanging on the outside of it. In later years I learned from Buck that was a form of a breakline.....a color breakline.
We discussed how at times how you needed to throw the lure right up on the bank itself and when it eased back into that little clear area..BANG...mister fish was there. You could get double limits just working point after point after point. Didnt really learn anything about the lake but sure did catch a lot of fish.
A bunch of old guys who called themselves "Tennesee Jigger Pole Fishermen" would come down here in the winter with long cane poles, 100 pound test line, and treble hooks loaded down with a gob of red wigglers or pink worms. They'd move along jigging that gob of worms into the little clear areas in that muddy water and the catches they made were astonishing! The analysis would be....correct speed (slow) and correct depth (at the color breakline).....
As for the why? I have given up on the "why" and have decided that all fish are just stupid and I am even stupider to be out there messing with them but it gives me pleasure and at my age, I intend to get all the pleasure I can handle. (as he pours another blast of CrownRoyal)
Stay happy, Merry Christmas, and all that.
Regards,
Douglas