Q&A AI
Where do fish go in dirty water?
When the water is dirty, bass tend to change their behavior and location to adapt to the reduced visibility and altered conditions. Here are some key points to consider based on the video context:
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Seek Clearer Water: In lakes where water clarity is generally low, such as those with visibility under two feet, bass will often move to areas where the water is clearer. These clearer areas can be found in backwaters, upper creek arms, and tributaries that clean up faster after a rain. As Randy Blaukat mentions, these spots can be more productive, especially in the spring.
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Warm Rain Influence: Mike Iaconelli highlights that warm rain can attract bass to incoming dirty water in feeder creeks, river arms, and ditches. This is because the warmer water can be a magnet for bass during the spring months (March, April, and May). However, cold rain will have the opposite effect, pushing bass away from the colder, muddy inflows.
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Shallow and Cover-Oriented: In muddy water, bass often move shallower and stick close to cover. As explained by Wired2Fish, bass will hug tight to structures like sea walls, docks, and thick vegetation. This behavior is similar to feeling for walls in a smoky room; bass use cover to navigate and feel secure in low-visibility conditions.
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Stable Water Conditions: Matt Stefan points out that during certain times of the year, such as summer, bass may prefer clearer water because it offers more stable conditions. However, in spring or after a rain, the warmer, off-colored water might be more appealing.
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Depth Adjustments: In dirty water, bass tend to move higher up in the water column. For example, in clear water, bass might be spread out from the surface down to 40 feet, but in dirty water, they might be concentrated from the surface down to 15-20 feet.
In summary, when the water is dirty, bass typically:
- Seek out clearer water areas if available.
- Move to warmer, dirty inflows during spring warm rains.
- Stay shallow and close to cover.
- Adjust their depth based on water clarity and temperature stability.
If you have any specific details about your fishing location or conditions, feel free to share, and I can provide more tailored advice!
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Transcript
Video03:55
06:30
This Is One Of Those Videos Instant Gratification Anglers Ignore by Intuitive Angling With Randy Blaukat → in other water Clarity Lakes but a dirty Lake say for example if the water visibility in your lake is under two foot well all the time even when it's at the clearest and you get a big rise and then it starts to dirty the water up you've got to look for those clear water areas now those clear water areas can come in a wide variety of places they can come like in you know little Backwater areas sometimes they can come in the Upper Creek arms you know the Upper Creek arms are some of the first places to clean up after you do get a hard rain you know you'll have runoff coming in and initially that runoff is dirty and that dirty water filters down through the lake as they pull current and then the upper tributaries and those runoffs are the first places that actually clean up so sometimes you can go like to the back of the creeks and get into cleaner water even if the main lake is done but specifically in the springtime of the year if you're fishing that dirty water lake you know look for the water Clarity that that gets closer to what it originally is you're going to catch a lot more fish like that now if you're in a lake that has a little bit cleaner water anywhere between like say water visibility of over three or four feet
Transcript
Video03:12
06:15
How to Bass Fish COLD & DIRTY Water! (Springtime!) by Mike Iaconelli Fishing → warm rain not cold rain okay that's a whole different scenario but I wanted to address it real quick so in the spring when you have a system that dumps warm rain or water that's warmer than the mean temperature of the lake that's actually going to be a magnet okay and that makes the fishing better so when it's warm rain I like to go to where that warm dirty water is coming in um it's going to come in in feeder Creeks it's going to come in in River Arms it's going to come in in drains or ditches in the backs of the pockets a lot of times you can see it with your eyes you could actually see the flow coming in and if it's stained or dirty and if it's warm in March April and May those fish will head to that incoming dirtier warm water seen it a million times Lakes uh up here in the Northeast lakes in the Ozarks like Table Rock even Lakes out west I've seen this happen so so warm rain is different but 70% of the time cold rain rain that dumps and that same inflow of dirty stained muddy water that coming that's coming in it's colder than the main Lake okay so we really have to combat these conditions by doing a couple things with our baits um so this is really where it gets to the meat of
Transcript
Video00:00
03:07
How to Bass Fish COLD & DIRTY Water! (Springtime!) by Mike Iaconelli Fishing → hey everybody Mike iell here welcome to a brand new shop not in the shop but on the lake and in today shop we've got a great one for you today and we've got a topic that if you fish in the spring you're going to encounter these conditions we're out here in Lake X today and we have a very typical thing that's happening and in today's shop we're going to talk about how to deal with cold dirty water in the spring okay cold dirty water in the spring you're going to encounter this I don't care if you fish on the weekends or you're a hardcore tournament guy you're going to encounter dirty cold water in the spring sometime in your life and uh we're going to talk about it let's really analyze what happens here this time of the year okay and and why this is a common scenario okay Springtime most of the time most parts of the country we're talking about March April 100% April and even into May if you're in North Country right if you're in a colder climate this happens a lot in the month of may as well so you know the scenario is this it's springtime fish are moving from their winter pattern to places where they want to spawn right they're pre-spawn they're moving they're transient they want to be shallow they want to be biting but a big storm comes
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Video00:00
02:37
Get Better Bass Fishing in Muddy Water with These Tips by Wired2Fish → anytime I'm on a fishery whether it's a big lake a small lighter and in between Lake I look for dirty water I look for at least some staying water and I do that because I like the fish outlet that's my personal strength everybody's a little different I like to fish less than six feet of water if I can something good to think about is if you were in a room if you're in your bedroom and the room was dark and all of a sudden the room filled with smoke what are you going to do the first thing you're going to do is go to a wall and feel for the wall so you can find the door and get the heck out of there I believe bats are very similar in their behavior in muddy water so when it's dirty and they can't see much they're not always they're not often going to be kind of roaming like you see them cruising maybe in shallow air and clear water you'll see them right up against a piece of cover I mean right up against and if you're on the lake with sea walls they like to cruise those sea walls that's them just feeling around trying to get their bearings in that muddy water so with that being said I look for the thickest stuff I can possibly find when I'm in muddy water you know I found that
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Video01:57
04:12
bass fishing - How to Find Fish when the Water is Muddy by Flukemaster → if they're clear and out here on the main river channel what happens when it rains is the first places to muddy up are going to be back in the backs of the creeks and the rivers and any of the tributaries that run in that's what's going to muddy up first so and right after a rain I'm gonna fish the south end of the lake or the look the lower end of the lake but after a few days like it's been probably a week and a half of just muddy water rolling in here it's it just gets pretty bad and you start looking into these pockets the last things to muddy up are the pockets and then as the rain stops a couple days after that it pushes out in the back so the rivers of the creeks are cleared up so I'm looking for the clearest water that I can possibly find and we're gonna go from there but let's just go find some fish because these things go I'm hoping they're not in a funk the good thing is we get the next few days they're going to be stable weather it's gonna be rainy but the weather the water temperature is gonna stay about the same the rain is gonna stay about the same just kind of scattered and and so it should it should keep these fish pretty happy mud soup straight up muddy but I'm still gonna
Transcript
Video05:22
07:49
Most Anglers Don’t Pay Attention To This Detail When Bass Fishing And It’s Costing Them Bites! by Matt Stefan Fishing → muddy stuff because that that water is going to just increase dramatically in water temp and I tend to think that you have uh better action from fish that are in more stable water conditions and your clear water is going to be a little bit more stable during the summer months so it really does depend on the time of year that you're fishing because in some instances you may want more off-colored water because it'll be warmer or warm faster or there's times you may want that clear water which is going to be a little bit more stable so that's the first thing that I'm going to be looking for the next thing that I want to keep in mind is the depth that the fish are going to be in the dirtier the water the shallower those fish are going to get not necessarily shallower in terms of the bank but if you've got 40t of water and you've got gin clear water conditions those fish could be from zero to 40 ft if you took that same area and you made it extremely dirty chances are instead of being from 0 to 40 they'll be 0 to 20 or 0 to 15 majority of that population move shallower or higher up in the water column as your uh Lake gets dirtier and that simply has to do with the bait fish you got to keep in mind that the uh Bait fish your Shad
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