Get Great Success in the Bass Backwaters

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When the Bassmaster Opens visited La Crosse, Wis., last September, competitors had the entirety of Mississippi River pools 7, 8 and 9 at their disposal. That’s a lot of water, and a young angler named Cody Stahl admitted to feeling a little overwhelmed at first—until he went goose hunting.

Stay with me here.

While spending his last tournament practice morning hunting a quiet backwater area in Pool 8, Stahl snooped around the adjacent waters before leaving and caught a 4-pound largemouth—a straight-up difference maker on that fishery. In fact, in fishing this area, Stahl discovered a replicable pattern that eventually delivered the win.

The key to Stahl’s success was venturing to less-explored areas and finding something all to himself. Indiana’s Bill Lowen, an Elite Series pro angler, knows this strategy well. When fishing the Ohio River, his home water, he loves bypassing popular spots to find hidden treasures. He says these areas often hold good populations of unpressured fish and typically feature pockets of deeper water and areas of freshwater influx.

OFFBEAT ADVICE

Go Farther

Lowen explains that some of the best under-the-radar locations are often hard to describe. However, he usually prefers areas that most anglers won’t risk trying to access for fear of damaging boats or equipment. He likes searching for spots way up in the headwaters of creeks, far in the backs of pockets and, generally, any place that requires crossing a very shallow section of water to reach.

Not every backwater goldmine presents a gauntlet of fiberglass-nicking stumps, logs and rocks, but many do. Going slow and easy will help anglers in just about any bass boat navigate these harrowing haunts. However, this game truly favors aluminum tanks, like Lowen’s 21-foot XPress XR21. You still need to watch for potential hazards in an aluminum boat, of course, but the risk of damage is lessened. Compared to when he used a fiberglass boat, Lowen says he’s now able to go much farther back, without as much worry, in his aluminum rig.

Mine The Middle

When Michigan angler Garrett Paquette thinks “off the beaten path,” he envisions spots away from the main river channel or a natural lake’s main basin. Sometimes, he says, it’s even a depth thing.

In many of the areas he fishes, anglers beat up the shoreline pretty regularly because of how easy it is to fish. Lots of bass are in the lily pads or hanging around docks and other shallow cover, but he says many fish also occupy, and live much of their lives, in deeper water. In this scenario, he suggests mid-range depths represent the overlooked water.

What qualifies as “mid-range” varies for each waterbody. On some fisheries, such as Lake St. Clair, he says mid-range may be 10 feet, whereas on others, like the Mississippi River, it may be 3 to 4 feet. But, he adds, it’s never the usual shallow stuff or the obvious main-lake or main-river structures.

Pay Attention

Paquette also recommends anglers keep an eye out for unique features in any fishery that may suggest a potential gathering spot. This can be a log stuck on bottom, a weed edge, holes in the grass or even a hard-bottom spot, like the one he found during the same previously referenced La Crosse Bassmaster event.

Ahead of that tournament, Paquette had been practice-fishing a large grass area and found a 50-foot-by-50-foot section of shell bottom halfway between the main river channel and the shore. He had spent 10 to 12 hours fishing a little contour line with a ChatterBait, then he picked up several bites in quick succession at one location. When he took a closer look on his electronics, he noticed a big, bright spot—the shell around which the fish were concentrating. This little outlier among the grass continued to produce and proved a highly productive spot.

Paquette notes that finding such shallow or mid-depth sweet spots can be challenging, as they usually don’t stand out as much as common deep-water structures hosting big schools. Having your electronics set up properly and closely monitoring them helps, he says. As does keeping track of where bites originate. He suggests you can sometimes find these areas by simply covering a stretch of water with a ChatterBait or swim jig and keying in on productive spots.

“You can go for a quarter mile and catch nothing,” he says, “but then you come across a school of 100 fish. If you’re not paying attention, you might catch two and just keep rolling down the line.”

KEY CONSIDERATIONS

Understand the Situation

One unfortunate downside of less-obvious backwater areas, Lowen says, is that they typically hold smaller populations of fish compared to main-lake/river areas with greater repopulation potential. Fish will simply move from deeper water into shoreline areas more frequently along the main lake or river than they will in backwater locations. Therefore, tournament fishermen or casual anglers enjoying a multi-day excursion can quickly fish-out such spots. Productive sites are also harder to find, Paquette adds, because you’re simply dealing with a smaller percentage of the waterbody’s overall fish population.

“For example, say you can find fish on every wing dam, but in the in-between areas, you may have to try 20 spots until you find a group of fish,” he says. “You’re dealing with lower odds, but once you find them, you get them to yourself.”

Watch the Water

Fluctuating water levels may not limit main-river spots, but once you drop into the backwaters, shallow-water areas are affected more severely. In Stahl’s case, the river had been falling, and he found most of his fish on points and near the ends of drains—small cuts and trenches that fish follow—amid the massive grass flats. Basically, he did his best work in the places where bass fall back to when facing declining water levels.

Pay attention to shoreline wood. If you see laydowns with dry hanging grass, you’ll know the water has been at least that height, and any fish in your backwater area will be utilizing their fallback spots.

Navigate the Shallows

With any backwater endeavor, Lowen stresses navigational prudence. His T-H Marine ATLAS Hydraulic Jack Plate lets him raise his Yamaha outboard and keep his boat’s profile “flat” (horizontal) to easily idle through skinny areas. It also allows him to get up on pad in shallow water. In fact, he says he can get up and run in as little as 1.9 feet of water if the bottom is soft.

When fishing off the beaten path, Lowen recommends always idling in unfamiliar areas and marking your trail, as well as hazard spots, on electronics. Getting into these secluded areas is the hard part, but once he has a safe trail to follow, Lowen’s comfortable running back out of the area.

BAIT BETS

Lowen’s approach to backwater fishing is sensibly thorough, yet minimalistic. While specific baits and colors vary by fishery and season, his general selection works almost anywhere.

“I always say that those fish are simple to catch, so you don’t need a lot of options to catch them,” he says. “You need a flipping jig or a Texas-rigged soft plastic. I’m always going to want a square-bill [crankbait] for shallow wood. I want a small, compact spinnerbait, and then some type of topwater, like a buzzbait, a popper or a walker.”

Paquette likes a similar mix. He adds crankbaits for rocky areas, a wacky rig for quick pitches and the highly versatile frog. The latter can slide across matted vegetation, walk through sparse emergent grass and slink into shaded pockets beneath docks and overhanging trees.

Paquette’s go-to searching lure is a ChatterBait. With the right trailer and color choice, it imitates a range of forage from shad to yellow perch. Once he finds a promising overlooked spot, he’ll pick it apart with a 1/2-ounce jig and a Big Bite Baits Scentsation Ramtail trailer.

Many northern pike and bowfin occupy the same weedy backwaters bass do. These annoying interlopers grab everything from Texas rigs to bladed jigs. If fishing frogs, bring extras. These bycatch species love their amphibians, too, but fake ones don’t hold up well to toothy jaws.

Lastly, while Lowen encourages offbeat exploration, he stresses keeping a realistic perspective.

“You might find a population of unpressured fish, but you have the very real potential to tear up a prop, bust a lower unit and maybe even get stuck,” he says. “There’s high risk and high reward.”

BACKWATER BITES

• Bait considerations for when bass feed on smaller forage.

Anglers prospecting secluded backwaters, especially in rivers, often find bass fixating on tiny minnows. Where these little 1- to 2-inch-long baitfish roam shallow vegetation by the thousands, local predators can become frustratingly finicky. When this happens, you have two options: “match the hatch” or go against the grain.

Mirror Minnows

A small swimbait, like Keitech’s FAT Swing Impact 2.8, on a light jig head or a small underspin replicates small baitfish well. Z-Man’s 1 3/4-inch Shad FryZ on 1/32- to 1/8-ounce Micro Shad HeadZ jigs also fit the bill. As does a 2-inch Lunkerhunt Finesse Swimbait, a 2.75-inch Strike King Rage Swimmer or a 3-inch YUM Scottsboro.

Tiny crankbaits like SPRO’s 1 3/4-inch Little John Micro DD will deliver, too. As will a 1/4-ounce Z-Man ChatterBait MiniMax, a 3 1/8-inch Yo-Zuri 3DR-X jerkbait, a 3/16-ounce Strike King Lil’ Mr. Money Spinnerbait or a 1.6-inch SPRO Bronzeye Pop 40 frog.

Buck the Trend

Michigan angler Garrett Paquette will still throw a large jig when fish are targeting tiny baitfish, but he’ll trim the trailer and skirt a bit. If small mayflies or other bugs are present, though, he’s more aware of bait size. For example, if using a drop-shot rig, he may cut his worm in half. However, even when tiny baitfish dominate, there are still crayfish around, so some fish will continue eating jigs and other baits.

Bassmaster Elite pro Bill Lowen won’t hesitate to defy norms and throw baits several times larger than local baitfish. In one tournament in which he finished second, he caught a bunch of shallow-water fish on a big jig and a 10-inch worm when fish were keyed on smaller baits. He feels that sometimes a big spinnerbait, worm or large-profile jig can garner bites that other anglers miss. On most days, he says, smaller, compact baits yield more bites, but occasionally, switching to a larger bait makes a huge difference.

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This article was featured in the May 2025 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe.

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