This Week @ Bass Edge

Adjusting to skinny lakes

Mike Cork flipped his worm beneath a weathered duck blind that hadn’t been hunted in years. The hyacinth that floated around its base made it appear particularly fishy. The bell-bottomed cypress tree it leaned against made it even more angler attractive.

The fish sucked in the worm on the drop, and Mike reared back on the rod. After a quick picture, he slipped the bass back into the water. As we eased over to a nearby clump of cypress trees, I looked around, and it struck me again; Mike had just caught a fish in two feet of water, and in every direction Caddo Lake stretched as far as I could see.

Much of Caddo Lake is in that two- to three-foot depth range, and most of it is not much deeper. Fishing such a shallow lake calls for a different mindset from fishing many of the country’s lakes. Retired from the Air Force, Mike has fished lakes all over the country and had to make some adjustments when he settled in Benton, La., where he now fishes Caddo on a regular basis.

“It was something that was difficult for me to learn,” Cork recalled.

Fishing the shallow water in cold weather was the most difficult adjustment for Cork.

“Winter was the hardest. The water temperature here gets down in the mid-40s, and in other lakes I fished in California and Missouri you’d be fishing 12 or 14 feet at least, with suspending jerkbaits or crawling jigs across the bottom. You just can’t do that here.”

Cork’s go-to winter pattern in Caddo is fishing with Rattle Traps, trying to provoke reaction strikes.

“As the vegetation starts to die out, we burn these Rattle traps. If that doesn’t work we slow down. It’s either that or you are dragging a jig through grass so thick that nothing is going to find it anyway. You don’t have a whole lot of options. You can work a spinnerbait, but with a spinnerbait it’s hard to get a true reaction bite unless you have something to bounce it off.”

In late February, when the vegetation has thinned out, Cork picks up a jig and flips it at the ubiquitous cypress trees that Caddo is known for. He says spring fishing is similar to fishing most other lakes.

“Our water is more of a tannic color, so there is not much bed fishing. I fish spinnerbaits, weightless lizard … the same things everybody else does.”

When spring grows into summer, the shallow water of Caddo Lake becomes more challenging. Without deep water to escape the sun, bass seek out shelter such as beneath thick matts of vegetation.

“It’s mostly with shade and vegetation. That’s why you really have to be an avid fisherman, because you can come out and throw a frog across the vegetation until the sun comes out, but by 9 a.m. it’s 90 degrees. That’s when you break out the flippin’ stick and a big heavy bait – a jig or a plastic with a one-ounce weight.

“If you are going fishing for fun, you get on early and get off by nine, go home, take a nap, eat lunch, do some chores and then go back out two hours before dark.”

In the summer, Cork likes to take to the water after the sun goes down. He prefers the darkest nights.

“Everybody likes to fish at night on a full moon, but in shallow water I don’t like to fish on a bright moon. In a deep lake, the bass can still use the moon like it does the sun. It can sit below in a dark zone and look up and see everything. In shallow water, when everything can be seen so well, they can be seen easily too. To get into their security comfort zone, they stay buried up in the grass. On dark night they feel more comfortable to get out and go on the prowl. I have much better bites on dark nights.”

When fall rolls around, “Anything goes,” Cork says.

“You can throw whatever you want to throw; they are feeding hard and heavy. We don’t have tributaries and stuff for them to move up into. The shad don’t know what to do; they are out there running around, and the bass are just having a heyday on them.”

One of the biggest adjustments anglers must make is to rethink just what constitutes a depth change.

“A two-foot drop on Caddo is a 15-foot ledge on Oauchita. The problem is that a lot of those drops are gradual. We look for oxbows from before the lake was filled up. I tell people, ‘That little ditch there … one end of it is your house and the other end is McDonald’s. Somewhere along that little two foot drop, he’s in there somewhere.’”

A shallow water lake can be a bit deceiving because it all looks the same. Cork urges anglers to keep an open mind.

“You can’t come hear and say, ‘I’m a jig fisherman; I’m going catch one on a jig.’ It’s a lake just like any other lake. You have to attack it like it’s any other lake. You have to have a game plan to work bottom, mid-range and the top. Take your seasonal pattern and run with it. Fish one, three and five feet instead of one, 15 and 30.

“And don’t become overwhelmed. You look out there, and it is cypress tree after cypress tree after cypress tree. The next one looks as good as the one you just fished. Pick an area because you think it has something that will hold fish, and don’t wander off into the wild blue yonder.”

And finally, Cork also advises flexibility when selecting baits.

“Shallow lakes are a tremendous food source. They have snakes, frogs, ducks, small turtles, baby nutrias … if it will fit in their mouth they will eat it. Sometimes when trying to determining your bait, it’s not so much determining the color of the shad or crawdad; it’s how much commotion can I make and draw a strike to what I am doing.”