Locating fish

Question
Hey Chris,
    This question is regarding Largemouth Bass fishing.  I have been fishing a large public lake close to the house religously for the last month and have been unsuccessful in locating any concentrations of fish.  I can catch a couple of little fish up in the shallows late in the evening using the new zoom horny toads, but no tournament winning fish.  Each week they have an evening tournament and the average fish that wins it weighs around 5 lb's.  This lake has no structure as far as trees, it is pretty wide open with some hydrilla in the coves.  If you have any suggestions on what the best strategy for locating these fish would be I would greatly appreciate any advice you may have.

Thanks,
James

Answer
Hey James, sorry to get to you so late.  I've been working constantly and haven't really had much time to get to my computer.  Now on to your question...

Depending upon where you live and what the weather has been like, bass may be either pre-spawn, spawning, or post spawn right now.  I don't know where you live, so it's pretty hard to tell.  Since you're catching fish primarily on soft plastics (I'm assuming, and maybe not accurately) fished slowly. I'm also assuming that the activity level of bass in the lake may be down.  On the other hand, the opposite may be the case.  If the activity level in the lake is up, most fish probably aren't going to respond to a slowly fished soft plastic as they would to a faster, shinier crankbait or spinnerbait.    

The best advice I can offer you is to talk to other anglers fishing that particular lake.  Since that may or may not be an option, I can offer some suggestions and let you know what I would probably do.  If fish aren't active, I typically become very structure oriented and cover should be secondary.  The lake has to have points, dropoffs where shallow flats boarder deeper water, and almost definately a creek channel.  These are pretty much the typical hot spots, but they deserve special attention when you're not finding fish anywhere else, especially in a lake like you've mentioned.  I would look for ambush points that provide easy access to deeper water.  If there happens to be cover nearby, that's definately a bonus.  

Also, you should try to focus more on the sunny side of the lake, especially now since it's spring and the water is warming.  There are several reasons for this.  The first is that the food chain in a body of water revolves around aquatic plants that strive on exposure to sunlight.  Everything starts with those plants, as they attract the smaller fish, insects, larvea, and other aquatic creatures that fish feed on.  Also, active bass tend to move toward warming water in the springtime.  They're cold blooded and it effects their activity level.  In the morning, fish the side of the lake that gets first light (typically the western shoreline) and in the evening fish the opposite shore, as it then becomes the sunny shoreline.  

It also greatly pays off to pay attention to which direction the wind is blowing.  Depending upon what the fish are feeding primarily upon, paying attention to wind direction can be extremely helpful.  If vegetation is blowing toward one corner of the lake, then there's a good chance that's where you're going to find the organisms that feed off of that vegetation.  Wind direction is similar to sunlight in that sense.  It's all about following the food chain.  

Conditions like this tend to make a sonar a must so that you can locate structure points and find out if fish are suspending.  Suspending fish provide another situation you may have overlooked.  If you're fishing on or near the bottom, chances are you're right underneath the fish you're trying to catch.  When you approach an area, start fishing it with lures that allow you to work from the top down.  This is a great way to avoid missing suspending fish.  Depending what the lakes current state of vegetation and submurged plant life is like dictates how I would treat this.  I like to approach such vegetations from top to bottom.  Often, it's not until I get to running a crankbait or a spinnerbait along the tops of the weeds that I start to pick up strikes, so be patient.

If I knew more about your specific conditions, location, lake history, water color, water temp/air temp and recent trends, etc, I could definately help you a great deal more.  These are just some of the basic things that I start to look at when I'm in your shoes.  If you'd like a more in depth response, I'd be glad to help you out.  If I've provided the answer you've been looking for and you start catching 5lbers, all the better, right?  Regardless, though, thanks for asking.  Let me know how things go.

Good luck and Thanks for asking,
Chris