Freshwater Long Staight Beakdarklegs Feeding in Muddy Water
Fishing for northern pike in stained or muddy water can be challenging. Pike rely heavily on their vision to locate prey and launch attacks but the muddy water inhibits their ability to see. To catch these pike, you need to incorporate special tactics and bait selection to cut through the mud and get more bites. Let's take a deeper dive into this topic.
Can you catch northern pike in muddy water? You can catch northern pike fishing in muddy or stained water by fishing with lures that stand out against the watercolor, fishing baits slower, and selecting baits that produce noise or water vibration to allow pike to use other senses to locate your lures.
Muddy and stained water does complicate matters and can make catching pike a lot tougher, but with the right mindset and lure selection, you can still do very well.
I have fished for pike in muddy water on numerous occasions with mixed results. Since then, I have learned a ton about how pike respond to muddy or dirty water and how to better fish them.
In this article, I will show you everything I have learned from pike anglers who know exactly what they are doing. These tips will catch you a lot more pike when most anglers don't feel the juice is worth the squeeze.
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How Dirty Water Affects Pike
Northern pike use vision to hone in on and attack prey. But in muddy or stained water, visibility can be reduced down to almost nothing. Because of this, northern pike become a lot more reserved and calculated with how they hunt.
Unlike in clear water where pike can see prey from a distance and position themselves for an ambush, in muddy water pike may become a lot more docile and wait for bait to come to them.
This means you should spend more time in an area making cast after cast into different angles and corners.
Instead of merely putting food in a pike's home for it to eat, you may need to place that food in its kitchen and even on its dinner plate right in front of the fish.
You will also want to fish slower during these conditions. Since pike won't be able to see your bait as well, it is important you slow way down. Give those pike time to orient in the water and locate your bait.
It also helps to fish them with noisy or "chattery" baits like a chatterbait, square-bill crankbait, or colorado-bladed spinnerbaits examples. Contrast this to fishing for pike in clear water and the differences are apparent.
In clear water, pike can see your bait from a distance and are willing to move after your bait to strike it. I also learned from a study by Mathis & Smith (1993) that baitfish develop fear responses to northern pike faster from chemical cues than visual ones so pike won't have as easy a time ambushing minnows in muddy water as one may expect.
Here's a general list of the best pike lure varieties that will catch you plenty of small and medium pike, with some occasional giants mixed in . For a complete breakdown of every lure and piece of gear I recommend for pike fishing, check out my complete pike fishing gear list .
In Water That is Normally Clea r
When fishing in water that doesn't usually get muddy, it is important to know that pike oftentimes won't know what to do or how to react well to these conditions.
I have found that pike usually head for the shallowest water they can find. Pike literally begin "rushing the banks" and moving into these shallow spots to escape the muddy water and find prey.
Finding prey is the key term here because newly flooded bank edges can offer up completely new food pike have never experienced before. They will also have access to ambush spots that were previously on dry land.
If you fish in water less than 3 feet deep, you can oftentimes find pike willing to feed. Examples of water that doesn't get muddy often are big lakes or lakes in dryer areas that don't see many substantial rainfalls.
Another key place to locate these pike are at the mouths of tributaries and streams. These streams will push food into the lake where they are easier grabbed by hungry pike and the moving water can somewhat act to push out dirty water and leave small channels with clearer water.
In Water That is Often Muddy
When fishing in water that is quite often muddy or experiences muddy water throughout each year, pike in those waters will be more accustomed to handling muddy water.
The muddy water won't be as novel or stressful a factor on these fish because they will be more used to it. Prime examples of bodies of water where pike being accustomed to dirty water are rivers.
Rivers become muddy just about every time there is a substantial rain event. River pike won't react as drastically to muddy water as pike in lakes that hardly ever receive an influx of muddy water.
These pike will often position themselves at the end of the channel or off points where they can find slightly clearer water alongside the moving current.
These locations will attract baitfish too. The reason pike and just about every other fish prefer clearer water is not only to see better but the small dirt particles in the water can be irritating to a fish's gills.
Therefore, fish like pike will seek out the clearest water they can find and so will baitfish that pike feed on. But unlike pike who rarely ever experience muddy water, these pike now know exactly where to move when the water dirties up.
While it is safe to assume that river pike are used to muddy water, reservoir and lake pike can also experience plenty of muddy water days if there are tributaries and streams running into the lake that will dump in dirty water. One less than scientific method I like to clue is by noticing the coloration of the fish once you catch one.
I have found that fish living in murky or less-than-clear water tend to have very subdued coloration and are often lighter in color. Whereas fish caught in clear water tend to be darker and more vibrantly colored.
There may be something to this on the scientific end for an explanation, but if you catch pike that are very blonde in color, you can bet they are used to muddy water.
Fish Near the Surface
Anytime you are fishing in muddy or stained water, fishing moving baits near the surface can be a good way to catch pike. Pike usually have good spatial awareness and know how far from the surface of the water they are.
Likewise, from my experience, they seem to know that any bait swimming near the surface is limited in space it can move in an upward direction. This makes the baits "trapped" if a pike attacks from below and makes it easier for the pike to make the kill.
Furthermore, with the pike knowing their own distance from the surface, they will be able to determine distance to the bait moving above much easier.
I don't know how much of this is factual but I have caught not only pike near the surface in muddy water but bass as well using this approach. They seem to be willing to hit baits close to the surface when the water visibility is reduced.
Best Time of Day
The best time of day to catch northern pike when the water is stained or muddy is in the late afternoon followed by the early morning.
Even though it is harder for pike to see during these water conditions, pike will almost always be most active feeding right before sunset and right after sunrise when water temps are cooler and baitfish are more active.
The best time of day under these conditions are from sunrise until 2 hours after sunrise and 3 hours before sunset until just after sunset. It is important to remember that pike will seek out clearing water under these conditions.
If you notice the water is progressively clearing up as the day moves along, the pike will become bolder and more aggressive as the water clears up.
On some days when the water is clearing up, you may actually do better fishing in the middle of the day instead of the morning if the water clarity has vastly improved.
Pike and conditions can dictate the best times but usually, it is in that early morning and later afternoon windows when the best bites will be.
Slow vs. Fast
Anytime you are fishing in muddy water or any reduced light/reduced visibility scenarios, slow is always the better option.
Why do you suddenly drive slower once you hit a patch of dense fog or take short choppy steps with your arms and fingers fully erect in front of you when someone turns out the lights in a room?
Once the vision is reduced in a pike, it will need more leeway given by the angler to find your bait. Slow your approach and retrieve way down when fishing in muddy or stained water.
Also, instead of steady retrieves, try popping or walking-the-dog type retrieves which will keep the bait in the strike zone longer and give pike a smaller space of water to find the bait in.
Another great thing to do is to add noise or water displacement to your fishing. Instead of fishing quieter soft plastics, instead, tie on a colorado blade spinnerbait which produces more noise than a willow blade will.
Chatterbaits and buzzbaits can also be excellent alternatives for muddy water pike. Poppers are a great way to generate a strong topwater bite. The noise and vibrations caused by certain lures have proven effective at drawing pike and cluing them into where your lure is so they can grab it.
For a complete guide on northern pike fishing for beginners, check out this article. To learn how to catch northern pike from the bank, something that is very relevant to fishing pike in muddy water, check out this article.
Related Questions
Is pike fishing best in clear water?
Northern pike use their sharp vision to close with and attack their prey. It stands to reason that clear water would be a lot better for their hunting and murkier water. Fishing for pike in clear water is a lot better than in muddy or stained water.
Do northern pike bite at night?
Northern pike can be caught at night but their sense of vision isn't built for nighttime hunting. You can still catch some pike, especially on full moon nights, but fishing for pike is almost always much better in the daylight hours than at night. For a complete breakdown, check out my article on fishing for pike at night.
Is bass fishing good in muddy water?
While you can catch bass in muddy water, the limited visibility means you will really need to slow your approach way down and use noisier baits to allow bass to hone in on your lure.
Muddy conditions absolutely slow bass fishing way down and make it more challenging to catch a ton of fish.
Scientific Literature Referenced:
Mathis, A., & Smith, R. J. (1993). Chemical labeling of northern pike (Esox lucius) by the alarm pheromone of fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas). Journal of Chemical Ecology, 19(9), 1967-1979. doi:10.1007/bf00983800 (via: Springer Link)
Source: https://freshwaterfishingadvice.com/muddy-water-pike-fishing/
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