Question for Mike

[fishtale75]

This has been bugging me for some time. We fished a club tournament in January on Allatoona and had found some fish and were catching fish three days before the tournament and a front come through and rained a good bit and muddied up the water . I know most of the time when front comes through the fish doesn't really move that far but come tournament time we looked and looked for the fish we had been catching and couldn't get on them, the guys who done well in the tournament said they were fishing the "new Mud", or the mud line fairly shallow. I was just wondering if you have ever experienced this or can explain it. I would like to know if nothing else just to know whether or not they were kidding

[Killian]

If I remember right, I read a while back that bass will use the mudline as cover, same as a fallen tree. I have been fishing on toona before and caught bass as I pulled a spinnerbait through a mudline. I just fished it as though it were cover. There could be another explanation, but that is what I recollect.

[Mike Bucca]

fishtale, The pattern for me in the dead of winter is to stay just behind or right at the mudline. They tend to use the mudline as an "edge" or like Killian stated as "cover". On top of that welcome to spotted bass fishing. Spot patterns on Allatoona are VERY short lived. There are only a few patterns that I know of that last longer than 2 weeks.

1. The Senko Bite in Late Sept/early Oct
2. Swimbait bite in Early Spring and mid Fall
3. Dropshot bite in dead of winter (provided the water is clear)
4. Sammy bite for staging fish
5. Crankbait bite early to late winter > 50 degrees

Those are the 5 big bite patterns that are fairly significant. Everything else I have found is a crap shoot.

Mike

[fishtale75]

Thanks guys was just wondering, like I said I have had a while to think about myself but couldn't figger it out.

[harleywizard]

I have fished some mud lines and found that sometimes the mud will stratify and you can have clearer water below the mud line and vise versa. I have run a crankbait through it and had pretty good luck. But still the most important thing is finding the fish.