 “HOW
TO FISH WHEN THE WATER IS UP WITH CLIFF CRAFT”
Tantalizing The Bass On Top, And Fishing Slow-Rising
Cold Water
EDITOR'S NOTE: This week we’ll look at fishing
high water with all the floods in the Gulf Coast area
due to Hurricane Katrina and the rain dumped along the
Eastern Seaboard by Hurricane Ophelia. Cliff Craft of
Sugar Hill, Georgia, has been one of the country's  leading
anglers for a number of years. A professional fishing
guide on Georgia's Lake Lanier as well as a tackle representative,
Craft travels the country teaching fishing seminars
and competing in bass fishing tournaments, and enjoys
fishing high water.
A tactic that some anglers overlook in the late spring
and early summer is top-water fishing. Early in the
morning and late in the afternoon flooded water often
will move out of shallow water and hold right on the
edge of a tree line or brush line. By casting a surface
lure like the Bang-A-Lure or a Walking Mann to the edge
of he brush line, letting it sit there for several seconds
and then beginning to twitch it, you often can trigger
a strike. I have found that by trying to tease a bass
out of the bushes with a crippled, top-water, minnow-type
lure, oftentimes you  don't
have to fight the fish through the cover to get it to
the boat. Early and late top-water fishing can be excellent
under these conditions.
Fishing Slow-Rising Cold Water:
When the water begins to rise, you must know whether
the water coming into the lake is cold water or warm
water. Usually this can be determined by taking a water
temperature at the mouths of feeder creeks and then
by taking another water temperature in the back of deep
coves where no new water can come. In the fall and early
spring when a lake has four or five days of cold rain
and the water comes up slowly, bass can be tough to
catch. Unless the water next to the bank is warm, the
bass most often will stay where they have been before
the  water
has started to rise. Unless you know where the bass
have been before the cold water comes into the lake,
you can have a hard day of fishing.
Rising water that is colder than the pre-existing water
is a rare happening. I only have had that condition
happen a couple of times in my fishing career. Most
of the time when you are angling rising water, the water
coming into the lake will be warmer and will draw the
bass from deep water to the shallow water around the
bank. However, on rare occasions, you will find the
bass where they have been before the water has started
moving up. On days like that, I believe you are better
off to stay home by the fire anyway.
TOMORROW: ANGLING FLOODED GRASS
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