(Editor's note: The following is the latest installment in a series of fishing tips presented by The Bass University. Check back each Friday for a new tip.)
Growing up in Arizona, Josh Bertrand had no choice but to learn to catch fish in gin-clear water. On one of the closest fisheries, Lake Pleasant, there was often 20 to 30 feet of visibility.
Since becoming a pro, he’s developed a classification system for water clarities: “muddy” water has less than 1 foot of visibility; “stained” water has 1 to 3 feet of visibility, often the optimal conditions; “clear” is 3 to 8 feet of visibility, like you’d find on many of the Ozark lakes; and “ultra-clear” is anything over 8 feet. That includes some Western impoundments and also frequently occurs on the Great Lakes.
“When you can see your bait and you don’t see any fish around it, your confidence gets drained,” he said.
In order to prevent those confidence-draining occasions, he’s developed a system for approaching ultra-clear water. A lot of it involves boat set-up. For example, with apologies to Skeet Reese, he’d never run a gaudy yellow boat. He prefers a wrap that’s black or blue and more subtle. He’s also exceptionally careful about his trolling motor preparation and operation. He uses a T-H Marine Eliminator to minimize trolling motor noise and tends to run it on a low and constant speed.
“A lot of times your first shot is your only shot,” he added. Accordingly, he shuts the outboard down farther out than he might in dirty water, and is careful to lower the trolling motor into the water softly and not to slam his compartment lids. When stopping the boat, he’s also careful about where he positions it, noting that bass have to conceal themselves from both predators and prey.
When it comes to presentations, he said that the first consideration is his ability to make long casts. Accordingly, the shortest rod he’ll use in ultra-clear water is 7 feet, and that’s a spinning stick. With his baitcasting rods, it’s 7’6” across the board. He also wants to be sure to “match the hatch.” Therefore he’ll turn over rocks around the ramp to look for crawfish, which might be green, red, brown, black, blue or some combination thereof, and then he’ll attempt to mimic those colors. When it comes to baitfish, “more than color, the size is the most important thing.”
Speed of retrieve is also a critical factor. On calm days, especially in post-frontal conditions, he wants to take his time and bring his lure in slowly. In other circumstances, particularly when it’s windy and/or cloudy, “speed is a trigger.” For example, a spinnerbait looks like nothing found in nature, but burned back to the boat it forces a bass to make an immediate decision whether to bite. Smallmouths are particularly vulnerable to this warp-speed presentation. Even when bass are eating a dropshot or a tube reasonably well on Erie, sometimes Bertrand will mix in a crankbait to trigger additional strikes. He’ll cast way beyond his target and then crank like crazy through the strike zone. “You can’t reel it too fast,” he explained.
If you want to learn more about Bertrand's clear-water tactics, including his favorite fishing line and some of the surprising lures he uses for these conditions, check out his full video, available only by subscribing to The Bass University TV.
