Open water fishing tips?

[Grayson Everett]

This past weekend, I went out on my new kayak to a little lake that is very active in the mornings. There are bass jumping all over the place feeding for a couple hours so I figured I'd have a good chance at catching numbers. Anyways, I ended up catching 2, both near the bank. Every time I saw one jump in the open water I'd cast to the spot but never got a bite. I threw worms, cranks, top waters, fan casting trying to get the open water fish. Even had one jump about a foot from me and immediately dropped my worm but nope. I must be doing something wrong because looking back, I've never caught an open water bass, only ever near the bank or vegetation. Tips??

[MSM1970]

Question, what kind of bass, what water body, they where most likely taking a small midge this time of year.

[spoonminnow]

Small waters - those that average less than 20' deep whether river, lake or pond - are my favorite waters to search for fish using a variety of lures. Many lures are multi-species like the ones you were casting, but many have specific uses, time of day, season, water temperature and other conditions that dictate how their used, where and when.

As for myself, I prefer to use lures that are capable of catching most species and one lure type are soft soft plastics rigged on jig heads. They are one of the best search lures and catching fish starts with finding fish that are more prone to attack. The nice thing about soft plastic rigged on jigs is the huge variety of plastic designs that incite-the-strike. Most lures don't look like nor move like any prey animal - not that is makes a bit of difference, but which make choosing lures so much easier.

If I fished bass tournaments (did so for 15 years), of course I would use the usual bass lures such as your choices in lures. They would include bottom lures (Texas rigged worms, skirted jigs and trailers, drop shot plastics for example); mid depth lures would be long bill crankbaits, spinnerbaits, spoons, swimbaits and of course ball head jigs with soft plastic lures; surface lures would include swishing lures like the Zara Spook, buzz baits, floating or shallow running crankbaits and other soft plastic surface lures.

But, the lure examples below catch most fish species, and for my time on the water, catch more fish which IMO is always better than catching a few of one species due to lure design or size. Note the various body and tail shape combinations as well as lure sizes.
flat tail grub:



Swimbaits don't only catch bass:


Beetle Spins are nothing more than a miniature spinnerbait except that the jig head can be changed:


Other worm designs such as the Slider Worm when used with ball head jig mid depth do extremely well most times:


As with all the designs shown, you can work them anywhere in the water column and in different ways. Most important is that like most prey, that they move slow. Even if fish are more active, slow is still better. Where you search for fish is key ie. structure related, depth, open water vs closer to shallow water, weeds edges, etc. Generally patterns exist in a body of water which consist of combinations - like a combination lock you should take note of. 
Here is one example: lure design includes a certain body and tail action; lure weight  and size, water fish caught in (mid depth, shallow), where fish were relating to: hump with weeds in the middle of nowhere; how fast the lure was retrieved and how it was worked. These are elements of the combination that is sometimes part of a pattern. To be sure, more than one pattern can exist on a water on the same day, but lure choices many times are limited to the pattern discovered. 

Hope all of this wasn't too overwhelming and maybe of some help. But after decades of fishing many different waters in different states, I've found the above holds true.

Best of luck! - though luck is only as good as the angler that makes it good.


Side note: this is one of the best forum designs I've ever posted to. 

FrankM

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More examples:
Mini sticks (similar to the Senko and wacky rigged:



Claw shapes:



Tapered sinking worms like the Kut Tail Worm:



Kut Tail worm: