Trying to figure out how to fish a new water can intimidate and discourage inexperienced anglers, but it is easier than it seems.
Think of it as a crossword puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle or a Sudoku grid. Fishing is a puzzle, but unlike conventional puzzles, there are often multiple solutions.
The mistake that inexperienced anglers often make is looking at a lake or river in its totality. It's easy to gaze across a vast expanse of water and see only open space. A fish could be anywhere. Where do you start? How do you start? Should you fish the bank, or should you fish fast moving lures or topwater lures away from the bank?
I love to work crossword puzzles. I am very fond of the Sunday New York Times Crossword because it is the hardest. In my novice stage, I often looked at that big grid and feel my resolve melt. The clues lists devolved a big ink blot. I didn't know where to start.
With experience I learned to break a crossword grid into quadrants. Then, I looked for a few easy clues. Even better were two easy clues close together. A few letters on the board helped me narrow down answers to other clues, which gradually allowed me to decipher the puzzle's theme.
Fishing is very much like that. Solving a crossword clue is like catching a fish in a lake. As you solve more clues, you start catching more "fish" quicker until you conquer the "lake" quadrant by quadrant.
Let's use a farm pond, Lake Conway and Lake Maumelle as models for this exercise. A farm pond is the Monday edition of the New York Times Crossword. It's the easiest. Lake Conway is the Thursday edition. Its difficulty level is intermediate. Lake Maumelle is the Sunday edition, the hardest.
Lake Conway is very small compared to Lake Maumelle, but it can still addle a newcomer with indecision. Before arriving at the water, look at a map of Lake Conway and pick a place to launch. Access points are noted in the Arkansas Outdoor Atlas & Gazetteer. Simplify your options by picking an access in or near a cove. My favorite spot is the big cove near the nursery pond. It's a compact expanse of water that's perfect for kayak fishing, and it is full of cover.
Because I'm in a kayak, I can't go far. My boat limits me to that particular bit of water. It doesn't matter what's on the other side of the lake because it takes too long for me to get there. The only thing that matters to me is that cove. Limiting myself to those few acres reduces 6,700-acre Lake Conway to a farm pond.
Now, let's break that cove into quadrants. You've got the banks and all their cover. You've got the standing timber and fallen timber away from the bank. You've got the open water, and you've got the transitional area where the cove meets the main lake.
The bankside cover nearest the put-in offers the easiest clues to solve. Not all cover is equal. If a fallen log or a treetop is in mere inches of water with a mud bottom, that's probably not a productive place to fish. Wood cover in deeper water is better.
Wood cover in deeper water with a hard bottom is better.
Wood cover in deeper water with a hard bottom near even deeper water, especially if the deeper water is a creek channel, is best.
Your quarry also matters. You are more likely to find bream in more places. Largemouth bass are more particular. If it's bream you're after, you need only to dangle a cricket under a bobber in front of every log or top that lies in two or more feet of water. If you don't get strikes immediately, move to the next bit of cover until your bobber plunges. Take note of the type of cover and the water depth. That is a valuable clue that will help you solve that day's puzzle.
Catching bass requires a more methodical approach. Nothing beats a Texas rigged soft plastic lure for fishing wood cover. With the hook point embedded in the lure and especially if you peg the weight to the lure with the tip of a toothpick, it is very hard to snag. If a tree trunk extends into the water perpendicular to the bank, cast the worm or "creature" bait to both sides of the tree. In the summer, a bass will be in the shadow to escape the sun. That shadow moves all day, and a bass moves with it. It might strike a lure in the shadow or it might dash out to grab a lure just beyond the shadow.
When you get a strike, take note again of where the strike occurred. Also remember the presentation. Did the strike occur as the lure sat still, or did it occur as the lure moved? Did the strike occur as the lure was rising or falling? Again, those are important clues that will help you solve that day's puzzle. I say "that day's" puzzle because the puzzle can change overnight.
Once you have determined if fish will or will not bite a slow bottom-contact lure, you can experiment with other things. It's always fun to catch bass on a spinnerbait or a buzzbait. A spinnerbait makes an irresistible jangling noise when it strikes a hard object like a tree. A bass lounging in the shadow of a tree might ignore a soft plastic lure or a jig, but the commotion of a spinnerbait or buzzbait clinking against a tree and then moving quickly to escape will often trigger an otherwise disinterested fish to bite. The same is true when using squarebilled crankbaits, which are excellent for fishing woody cover.
Again, the fish will provide all the feedback necessary to solve that day's puzzle. If you limit yourself to a small piece of the lake, it's a much easier puzzle to solve. The experience you gain will enable you to similarly break down small parts of bigger lakes like Maumelle, Millwood, Greers Ferry or Bull Shoals.
Those big Sunday puzzles won't be as hard to solve if you practice on the smaller, easier puzzles.