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Fishing Rivers Under Lakes | |
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Hello Anglers,
Top-waters are best when fished around heavy cover. Look for
areas that have fallen trees, grass, bullrushes or even an
old boat dock. If you become adept at throwing the lures
around this type cover with good accuracy, you will catch
many fish. Open-water areas surrounded by submerged grass
can be an excellent place to have a bass crash your lure.
P.S. You can discuss this issue or any other topic in the new
Bass Matters forum. Check it out here...
Bass Matters Forum
Enjoy a week of fishing!
Brock
email Brock
Fishing Rivers Under Lakes
By Russ Bassdozer
Actually, many lakes we fish are not lakes. They're impound-
ments. Originally, river drainage systems that have been
dammed by humanity.
A golden concept that applies to impoundments year-round but
especially each spring is this: Fish impoundments as if they
still are the original rivers. This means targeting the
locations that were active flowing parts of the original
river system before being dammed by man.
Even though their banks may have been overflowed and flooded
over decades ago, the age-old creek channels and feeders can
still be important to the bass. The creeks and gulches and
washes and trickles were the oases of life before being
flooded by the dam - and may still be the meccas of mother-
lodes of fish.
Although buried under water now, the riverine environment is
still intact under the impoundment, and the bass still use
the impoundment as if it still is a river system.
A river system (and hence an impoundment) is a mesh of
countless connecting feeder veins and water flows of the
following exemplary types which you should learn to recognize
and target. Some of the larger constructs can be recognized
from far away, and may extend down into the impoundment from
far back on the adjacent land. Some of the smaller constructs
often have an additional traipse of garnishy greenery on the
way down to the shoreline, which is a surefire cue to a few
water veins that fish like gold veins.
However, many original river features may be far offshore
underwater now, and spottable only on a map (more on maps
later).
Here are some of the key river constructs underneath an
impoundment:
MAJOR CONFLUENCES. Where two rivers or streams that rarely
dry meet (or would have met if they were not flooded under
water by man). Confluences can be great summer and fall
staging spots for bass.
PERENNIALS. These are more or less steady creeks that never
completely dry up or only stop flowing during the very
driest spells. These usually have silty flood plain deltas
in the back, and may be marshland or flooded brush basins
in the back.
NON-PERENNIALS. These are where an intermittent creek or
wash, which may have been dry for most of the season, is now
underwater. The confluences where non-perennial or lesser
side creek would have met a stream or bigger creek - some of
these MINOR CONFLUENCES can be great winter or summer deep-
water holding areas for bass.
SEASONAL INFLOWS. Places that don't flow year-round but
bring water in predominantly during the snow-melt season
and/or only during the rainy or monsoon season. Snow-melt is
more "systemic" and runs off from deeply-saturated grounds
whereas rainy season inflows can often be but are not
necessarily shallower surface ground run-offs. In other
words, snow versus rain water may not necessarily journey
across the same terrain nor enter the impoundment at the
same places.
Continued...
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INCIDENTAL INFLOWS. Places that usually do not flow but only
convey excess water as a result of heavy downpour or flash
flood incidents. These can come from high ground, and may
result in temporary waterfalls or spills. The area may be
highly dangerous to approach on rainstorm forecast days or
during the wet or flood season, but during dry and stable
conditions, you may find a sand or sediment delta and
washed-in debris deposits at the base. Sure spots for bass.
SEEPS AND SPRINGS. Water squeezed out of rocks or coming out
of the ground. Actually, I don't think such water gets wrung
right out of the rocks, but squeezed between the thin space
between two layers of rocks. Nevertheless, even such
innocuous "drip rocks" seem to have enhanced food chains on
and about the drips - more terrestrials, insects, moss, algae
- and right on up the food chain that ultimately attracts
bass.
SHINING SAND OR WET SPOTS. I'd hardly call these any sort of
serious water inflow, but still bass have an uncanny affinity
for such areas, especially in the spring. Usually, they're a
dimple or depression in the back of a bowl or a teacup-type
sand flat. They may be the last spot of shoreline to dry
after a rain, or the last spot to stay wet as lake water
levels decline. A good way to notice them is simply sun
reflection shining off wet sand rimming the shoreline - or a
darker, damp tongue of dirt impressed on an otherwise drying
shore. Upon closer inspection, the spot may reveal an old
channel cut either coming out of or bending in close to the
shoreline.
I may have lost many readers here with the drip rocks,
shining sand and wet spots - but hopefully at least a few of
you are nodding wisely about these heretofore undocumented
bass hotspots in every impoundment.
Some of these spots, the smaller ones, are only recognizable
from a certain angle, and you really do get better at spot-
ting them with experience. Often times, on a steep shoreline,
such spots can be more easily seen far up the land mass, and
then traced down to where their journey descends into the
impoundment.
MORE ON MAPS
Maps can be extremely important and often are the only way
to get a full picture of the rivers and creeks still flowing
under and into an impoundment.
Impoundments can range from several hundred acres to several
hundred miles long. On some of the smaller impoundments, map
availability may be limited.
On the larger impoundments, new and different maps can be
ferreted out readily - and each new map has a habit of show-
ing different creeks, different inflows than the other maps.
Not just fishing, boating and topo maps, but shoreline
camping/hiking maps/books often note or describe water flows
not documented elsewhere. I've come across snow melt maps,
rainy season drainage maps, water rights usage maps,
environmental impact statement maps, even forestation/
vegetation density maps can give clues to creeks and water
seeps. Bottom line, most every map I come across on a large
impoundment may reveal yet another feeder creek clue or
riverine perspective not previously marked on other maps.
Now, never go target any of these areas while they are still
gushing or spewing water or even soggy rain-drenched - and
most of the time, most places, they probably aren't like
that. But I take great caution to avoid any such areas while
they are gushing or active or rain-drenched or whenever
inclement weather advisories are broadcast for an area, since
the land around them (which may be above you) seems to have
a higher chance to be unstable when wet - as in landslides,
rock slides, cliff walls falling, and flash flood surges of
uncontrollable dangerous water can enter an impoundment from
rainstorms happening many miles away.
Always keep in mind, if your favorite lake was once a river,
it probably still fishes like a river. Many anglers I've met
never realize this about impoundments. Much of the rest of
an impoundment (which was formerly dry ground) may be a
poorer fishing prospect at times, although the original river
and all its tributaries and veins still teem with life. In a
very real sense, even though dammed by humanity, the original
rivers remain the oases of life, and the connecting mesh of
hidden underwater creek channels are often the premier places
to be for bass.
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FISHING JOKES CORNER
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An Italian fellow took his mother fishing on a party boat
for Fluke one day. After drifting for hours without even a
nibble his mother hooks into one. Everyone on the boat was
excited, cheering the old women on and telling her to take
her time.
Finally she lifted it into the boat, picked up the fish,
removed the hook, looked at it up and down, and then tossed
it back into the water.
Stunned, her son says, "Mama why did you throw that fish
back into the water?"
She replied, "I don't know, to me it just didn't look fresh."
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Questions? Comments? email: Email brock
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