It’s no secret that fishing the backs of creeks for largemouth is a key pattern this week on Lake Martin.
The textbook reason is stained water that is warmed by rising temperatures and rain runoff. Adrian Avena is one of the many anglers using a one-two punch that begins in the morning in deeper water fishing for spotted bass. As the water warms later in the day he changes his focus to the backs of the creeks to target largemouth.
“Whenever you are dealing with a winter to prespawn scenario for largemouth the best strategy is searching for the warmest water,” he told me. “Normally that type of water is going to be in the backs of the creeks, where the water gets stained, is in shallower water, and is subject to warming up the fastest from the afternoon sunshine.”
Avena, a self-proclaimed power fisherman, finds such conditions ideal for his style of fishing.
All that said, I wanted to know more than the textbook reasons why stained water is the place to be for largemouth during prespawn. We all understand the theory behind fishing stained water, but exactly what is the best stained water? I wanted to drill down more into that question and have Avena define exactly what are the best stained water conditions. Here’s what he said.
“As a power fisherman I’m trying to find water where I can see my lure running in 4, 6 or 8 inches of water. With that level of clarity the bass can use their sense of sight to find the bait. In muddier water they must rely only on their sense of sound. Plus, I can retrieve that lure faster and trigger the reaction strike that comes as a result of power fishing.”