Fishing Muddy Water

Spring is mud time. Like it or not, in many parts of the country you need to be able to fish muddy water if you want to do well in the spring.

As a seasoned Oklahoma pro who has four Top 20 finishes in a row on the tours, Tommy Biffle obviously knows a thing or two about mud. In the following, he gives some tips on mastering this often-frustrating condition.

Muddy Is Easier

"I like muddy water," Biffle says. "To me, it's easier to catch them in muddy water than really clear water. The fish aren't as spooky, they get shallower and muddy water warms faster."

Mud "hurts the fishermen more than it does the fishing," he notes. "A lot of guys will run from it because they're not used to fishing it. They like fishing cleaner water and have never gotten accustomed to fishing muddy water. That's why like I like it. I've fished a lot of it. We have some lakes in Oklahoma that stay pretty muddy, and some that get red.

"If the water is muddy for some time, the fish get adapted to it. It's just normal to them. But fresh muddy water is a different story. If the water just turned really muddy, you better look somewhere else until that water has a chance to settle down."

He says it takes 2-3 days for fish to adjust to mud "as long as the water temperature is warm. Cold muddy water is the worst thing that can happen. But if the water is in the high 50s and 60s where the fish want to spawn, they will go right up and spawn. They won't wait for the water to clear up."

For anglers intimidated by mud, Biffle says: "Just remember that fish in muddy water get shallower and bite easier than in clearer water because they're less spooky."

Favorite Technique

Anyone who knows Biffle by reputation won't be surprised to learn that his favorite technique for catching shallow, muddy-water bass is pitching and flipping a jig. He says those used to flipping and pitching for clear-water bass tight to cover on high-sun days should remember the above points: "The water warms up faster, and the fish are shallower and not as spooky, so it's a better situation for flipping and pitching."

His muddy-water lure of choice is a black/yellow Rattleback Jig with a black neon chartreuse Gene Larew Salt Craw trailer. "That's my confidence color," he says. "That's a jig that I can throw the longest and think one is going to bite it, and it's always been a good muddy-water color."

Black/yellow is an unusual color combination on the national tournament scene. "I've had it for as long as I can remember, ever since I started fishing," he says. "I think it came from back when I was a kid. We'd get those H&H spinners, and lot of them were black and yellow. A lot of spinnerbaits used to have black and yellow skirts too."

He fishes the jig on a 7' 6" All Star flipping stick (heavy ), Quantum PT 600 Energy reel and 25-pound Stren High Impact line.

Tips

> "In spring when the fish are starting to spawn, I have a little rule of thumb," he says. "If I can't pitch my jig and make it land on dry ground, then I'm fishing too deep."

> "If a lake has buck bushes and willows, then you just need to figure out which ones the bass are in and leave the others alone. If it's a lake that hardly has any cover or structure in it, just look for a log, stump or branch -- anything laying in the water."