Shallow water is my main bass fishing venue. The largemouth bass is, by nature, a shallow water predator. Anytime I can find fish in 5 feet of water or less, I feel very confident with my angling approach. Regardless of the season, there is usually a good population of bass up shallow as long as the water temperature is at least 50 degrees.
Bass are in shallow water for two reasons: they're either feeding or spawning. In both cases, they're highly catchable. Bass in deep water aren't spawning, and they often aren't feeding; therefore, they're harder to catch.
Not that I'm unique in my preference for skinny water. Bass fishing has traditionally been a shallow water sport. Even today, with all the emphasis in the outdoor media on deep diving crankbaits and structure-probing Carolina rigs, most bass anglers still fish shallow, which means I run the risk in a tournament of dealing with bass that have been highly pressured by local fishermen. Stay tuned; I'm about to explain how I deal with this problem.
Conditions for shallow success
It's much easier to catch shallow bass in murky water than in either clear or muddy water. To me, water with a foot to 18 inches of visibility is perfect. Fresh, inflowing mud is very difficult to fish; it takes bass some time to adjust to decreasing visibility. Cover availability especially grass makes gin-clear shallow water more productive.
Most bass fishermen hate coping with the wind, but it can be your best friend when you're fishing shallow. Wind decreases visibility, making you and your boat less conspicuous to the fish. It also concentrates drifting plankton blooms, which attract schools of baitfish, which in turn pulls more bass into the area. However, too much wind in a lake with a silty bottom can quickly trash a shallow pattern by turning the water roily.
Cloud cover allows you to comb shallow water quickly with search baits like spinnerbaits and lipless crankbaits, and it is therefore highly desirable when fishing against the clock. Bass prowl for groceries much more aggressively under overcast skies, but when solar penetration is high, they like to park next to cover and ambush their prey, which calls for a slower approach with worms and jigs. Interestingly, in water below 50 degrees, you'll often experience a better shallow bite on calm, sunny days, when bass move out of deep water to warm themselves around wood and rocks.
A falling barometer is a great asset when fishing shallow because it pulls deeper bass in for a feeding binge. I've often joked that the best shallow bite comes when a tornado is on the way.
Of course, cover is a must, but don't think you need acres of stumps and grass to hold bass up shallow. As long as the bass has something it can put its eye behind, it feels secure in skinny water you won't believe the fish you'll catch from behind pencil-thin stickups. Isolated cover is always better than vast concentrations of wood or grass, and it tends to hold the biggest fish. Don't be afraid to fish a bank that is virtually barren except for one lone stump at least you know where the bass are. Bass favor grass first, wood second and rocks third, so target your casts accordingly. At a recent seminar, a guy asked me whether I thought bass prefer native aquatic grasses, like eelgrass, more than imported varieties, like milfoil; my response was, as long as it's green, it'll hold fish.
Boat setup and control
If you think about it, what could be more obtrusive to a shallow bass than a 20-foot boat with two guys standing up in it, flailing their arms about? If you put your chips on shallow water, you'd better be in command of your bass rig. Here are some pointers:
The No. 1 mistake shallow fishermen make is banging their trolling motor into cover or the bottom. This not only has the potential of damaging your equipment, it puts bass on red alert and can turn off a great shallow bite, like flipping a switch. I use a Minn Kota Genesis trolling motor; this has power trim, allowing me to raise or lower the motor shaft by stepping on a switch. Also, trim your outboard up to keep the skeg from digging a groove in the bottom of the lake, but not so high that you lose its rudder effect.
Keeping your trolling motor set on a constant low or moderate speed is better than continually turning the power on and off. Shallow bass seem to adjust better to a continuous sound than an intermittent one.
A water temperature gauge is an absolute must for shallow bassin'. One or 2 degrees can make all the difference in bass location and mood especially in winter and early spring. I have a transom-mounted temp probe on my dash-mounted graph, and a probe mounted on my trolling motor for my bow graph.
A good depthfinder is critical to shallow water success. Many LCRs work great in deep water, but they black out or go haywire in shallow water. I use a Bottom Line SideFinder to help pinpoint bass and cover in skinny water. Its transducer shoots sideways. On a recent TV taping at a clear Tennessee lake, bass were relating to big, shallow rocks; the trouble was, there were millions of rocks, and only a few of them held fish. The SideFinder allowed me to focus my casts on the rocks that had bass around them, and I was able to catch a quick limit for the camera.
Presentation tips
How you present a lure in shallow water is often more important than what lure you use. I like to get as close to the bass as I can without spooking them, for two reasons. One, my presentations are more accurate; and two, the chances of a big bass busting me off on a stickup are a lot less if I have 10 feet of line out than 50.
The distance I fish from my shallow targets varies according to conditions. Bass holding beneath overhead cover, like milfoil mats, will let you get extremely close to them without spooking. The same goes for muddy water this is when most tournaments are won by flipping. In high-visibility conditions (clear water/sunny skies), I back off a bit, but usually no farther than I can reach with a long, underhand pitch.
I use the pitching technique because a quiet lure entry is critical in shallow water. A shallow fish is often highly pressured; it grows accustomed to hearing lures splash down into its realm, and it is attuned to feeding only when it's convinced that the thing swimming past its nose is safe to eat.
When fishing shallow wood or grass, I pitch my lure 2 feet beyond my target and try to make contact with cover during the retrieve. Close isn't good enough you've got to bump cover. Most shallow strikes come immediately after your lure careens off a stump or ticks the top of a grassbed.
Because shallow bass are constantly dodging lures, I make a big effort to give them something they haven't seen before. Everybody knows that shallow, murky water is ideal for spinnerbaits, so I use one that's got a different look than the spinnerbaits the masses are throwing, like Hawg Caller's Triple Blade, or Cavitron. A shallow crankbait can be a great option on lakes that have been spinnerbaited to death it covers the same depth zone, but has a totally different look.
I use a lot of soft plastics in shallow water: tubes, worms, lizards, grubs, creatures. The key to presenting them is to allow them to drop straight down into cover rather than slicing across it. I use light sinkers, 1/8 or 3/16 ounce, and peg the weight (except when fishing tube baits). Floating worms also are deadly in shallow water, especially around spawning time.
One of the deadliest, and most overlooked, shallow lures is a buzzbait. This is a true "hawg bass" bait that will produce monumental strikes in surprisingly cold water. Lipless crankbaits are another great choice. These fast moving lures defy logic, for shallow bass will eat them in 42 degree water.