The Art Of Eliminating Unproductive Water

[jpb2187]

My $0.02 on google maps/ aerial images... I like google maps for overhead aerial picture detail, but Bing maps also has pretty good aerial images. They have a mode called "Birds Eye View" that lets you change the angle of the map. This allows you to look at 1 spot from either N, S, E, or W. They also have these images from different times of the year so you might be surprised what you find. The view from the N may be from Spring, but the view from the S could be a winter picture. I think it gives you some options google maps doesn't have and sometimes can reveal a better view of an area.

[mic]

Don't do what I used to... stand in the eddies and fish the riffles. Oh well, learn more from failing.

[Greasy B]

As a routine I always look at the river on google earth prior to a trip and look again when I get back, kind of a spatial briefing/debriefing. I don't think that helps my success directly but it does give me an understanding of the habitat and where to focus my efforts.

[Guest]

I take google earth a step further by measuring distances. Put in-Take out areas. I might even measure a particular pool. Distance to a RR bridge or main tributary. Number of bluffs along a stretch. All known watering holes where the water buffaloes wallow in the seering heat.

[stlfisher]

Since I prefer wade fishing, unless I can navigate around the upproductive water I pretty much have to walk through it. If I walk through it I might as well fish it a bit. One of the downsides of wade fishing.

However, that unproductive looking water (when trout fishing) has produced my biggest fish. Unfortunately, I have not had the same luck with smallies.

[exiledguide]

My grandpa told me

Never play poker with a guy called Pop

Never eat at a place called Mom's

and when fishing... a point is a point is a point etc

No, I think it was Jerry Mckinnis or Gadabout Gattis, but I have fished points everywhere I have fished and they have held fish so that is where I usually start and then move to islands ledges etc.

[Al Agnew]

Rules of thumb:

1. It all depends. Depends on the size and volume of the river. Depends on the clarity of the water. Depends on how notional the fish happen to be that day.

2. Skip the dead water...except in smaller streams, like wading size streams, where there isn't much distance between the riffles and the dead water.

3. Skip the fastest, shallowest parts of the riffles...unless there's something in one that causes a deeper pocket to be scoured out.

4. Skip the middle of the river...unless there is some kind of feature there that will change depth abruptly or furnish good cover.

5. Fish everything else.

Rivers that Mitch likes to fish, big enough to jetboat, get enough pressure and have a thin enough density of fish per mile that some areas of the river AREN'T going to be productive. It didn't used to be that way. There was a time when I would float the middle Meramec, fishing just about everything I came to with the exception of the fastest water and the middle of the longest, deadest pools, and catch fish from good spots all along. Now, however, I fish a lot of that water without getting a sniff, and seem to find the fish grouped in certain areas. Problem is, those areas change from day to day and season to season. I don't spend enough time on the middle Meramec in the summer to have pinpointed "favorite" spots, so when I do fish it I tend to just fish the way I used to, and hope for the best...hope that if I fish every spot I come to with the exception of those fast riffles and dead pools, I'll find some fish.

On the smaller rivers I float, it's pretty much a no-brainer. Fish everything that might possibly hold a fish. It's easier to do if you fish the way I do, with fast-moving lures. If I had to fish everything I came to with jigs, I'd go completely bonkers.

On the couple of rivers I really know very well, there are actually fairly long stretches that I don't bother to fish, because I've fished those sections a ton of times in the past without catching squat. They tend to be long, shallow, slack water pools. However, on less familiar rivers, I often even fish those areas...and often catch a few fish from them. So once in a while I'll fish the stretches I don't otherwise fish anymore on my favorite rivers, just to check and see if there are fish there that I'm missing. So far, I've found one or two of those stretches actually do produce a few fish.

So I admit it, if you fish hard, fast, and thoroughly, you don't have to eliminate much water on the smaller float streams. If you fish the heavily pressured jetboatable streams, nothing beats time on the water and learning which areas are unproductive for you...and one other thing...in heavily pressured rivers, don't automatically eliminate the spots that you KNOW most people pass up. That might be the best pattern on a given day...obscure spots on off banks and pockets in fast water.

[Mitch f]

The bigger rivers do get a bunch of pressure no doubt. As far as Al's #1 rule of thumb from above, I've kind of narrowed the water clarity down to 2 easy theories. One, with the exception of the jerk bait bite in the spring and fall, when the water is clear I only fish the top and bottom. Two, when the water is stained I only fish the mid water column, with an occasional bump off the bottom.

[Al Agnew]

Never really thought about it that way, but I do much the same. Although in the summer, clear water I fish almost exclusively on top of just under the surface, seldom using anything on the bottom and seldom anything that runs more than 6 inches deep. Dingy water I still fish the surface, but spend a lot of time fishing mid-depths, and more time on the bottom than I do when it's clear. If I fished more bigger rivers in the summer, though, I'd stick with Mitch's rule and use more bottom stuff in clear water.

More and more, I'm limiting my lures in clear water. WTD topwaters, twin spin, and buzzbait, occasionally the homemade Subwalk and some Superflukes. In dingy water, the possibilities really open up, with a lot of use of my shallow running crankbait, a lot of use of regular spinnerbaits, some deep diving crankbaits, jigs, tubes, along with the clear water lures.

But that ain't eliminating water...I eliminate water by fishing it all and letting it eliminate itself!

[countryred]

Some really good rules up there. Most of my knowledge has been on the Salt, above or below Mark Twain. Its a stain water fishery.

The smallmouths really like the current and rocks, and mid-stream wood and the largies, well....they love the wood just out of the current. The riffles seem to hold a lot of smaller smallies but sometimes the bigger ones like the lower part of the biggest pools, just above the riffles. Up here we can use bubba baits, flashy spinnerbaits, big tubes on flip sticks, etc.......its taking some time adjusting to the jacks fork for me.

The very best way to eliminate water is to tie on your favorite baits and cover water.