I'm planning to fish Castaic next weekend. I called the landing and they said only catfish are biting because the water's so muddy. Anyone have any suggestions for bass tips in muddy water? I'll probably be fishing in the afternoon -- maybe shake some brass-n-glass worms?

Appreciate any tips you can provide, and would love to hear from anyone's that been up to the lake since the rains.

no much help here but I just fished the lagoon and the water is like a nice creamy chocolate milk. I did meter some fish but they didn't bite anything I threw their way. But I must say, it was a perfect day weather wise. :)

A friend of mine said a brass/gold spinnerbait would be worthy of use. What do you guys think??

One of the lakes I often fish normaly has between 0 to about 3" of visibility. I've noticed a lot of guys just write a lake off if the water is stained with low to no visibility. I know most of us Socal guys are use to fishing clear water lakes and we do a lot of site fishing but once the bass have had a chance to aclimate they can and will bite very well in the chocalate milk. Stained water bass are definitely less weary too.

Although it's not ideal for us stained water base stand to really benifit during spawn. I think the fish at Castaic should be comming around. Regardless of the water color I'm thinking they should have increase in activity (appetite) going in to prespawn.

I've done well on spinnerbaits, rattle traps, black zipper worms (longer worms are better),black jigs (black trailor don't forget the rattles), tube jigs basically anything that gives a lot of vibration and displacment. Stick with dark colors, black/rd flake is my personal favorite in stained water. Good luck.

JerryG

Let me know how you did. Ill be hitting Castaic on Wends.

I'm actually going NEXT weekend, so let me know how YOU did this weekend, Vulture. Much appreciated...

2100lb at the lower lake on monday the fish were not biting at all 3hrs after the plant only 4 fish were caught there were 5 of us fishing all on power bait none of us got a bump on lures. Tuesday they plant about 1000 lb at the main ramp they bit for 2 days and that was it. one striper was taken at the point not much of anything else that I know of anyway. fish and game said they can't plant piru or pyramid and some of the other areas so maybe they may plant again next week that is why they double planted the lower lake twice,fish were only 8 in long.

maybe try a rapala/crank bait that doesn't go deeper than a couple of feet in the shallower water. or explore into the coves for clean water-to-muddy water breaks and cast rattley cranks along the break.
noisey/splashy topwater plugs might work too.

I didnt fish Wends as I said I would but I did fish it Thurs. I was slow caught one 3lb and a few small hits all day. I fished deep and shallow with spoons, jigs and spinners. Wind kicked up a bit and it was a littel cold. Very few boats on the water. The lake is covered with debris. Alot of drift wood floating around. Some places you can open your boat up and some places you had to putt through. Over all I would give it a 4 on a scale of 1-10. The water is dirty with 1 foot vis.
Let us know who you did on the weekend.
Oh, caught my fish on the drop shot in 13 foot of water.