My daughter likes using pink plastic worms. She does pretty well on those rigged Texas style. She just fishes around shoreline structure.
My buddy Rick uses scented plastic worms mostly dark ones, same rigging and structure. Slow twitching the bait along the structure down close to the bottom
Sometimes, Rick will use crankbaits if the worms aren’t working or it’s too windy to fish them.
On the Oxbow I live on, the structure is mostly fall downs, some ancient live oaks, along the shoreline. Cypress knees are additional cover. There’s some limited areas with lily pads and a few brush piles. Hardly any submerged aquatic cover. The lake is about 100 yards wide and about 2 miles long. Old river channel is what an oxbow amounts to. It gets cut off from the river flow. There’s are lots of them running up and down the near oyster creek from Sugar land to the coast. Some along the Brazos River too. This one is 10-11 feet deep over most of the middle. 50 feet off the shoreline, it’s 7, 8 or 9 feet in many places. That’s about how far the fall down structure goes out.
The 22# 4 ounce Georgia world record bass came out of an oxbow lake. Bass in the winter in the lake I’m on often roam about after Shad and might be found near the ends of the lake out in the middle. I’m mid lake and sometimes they hang out off my bank in the middle going after shad, especially afternoons in the winter with a little sun. I always thought bass oriented to structure, but sometimes on this oxbow, they rove around in schools chasing bait. Look for bait disturbances, look for pelicans diving, it’s a lot like saltwater fishing. Cast into the disturbances, Shad like plugs work well.
My shoreline in the winter is often deadsville in the morning, but near sundown the fishing really gets cranking. My shoreline faces west and gets afternoon sun. Cloud Filtered sunshine is the best for fishing on my bank. Full sun and it doesn’t get going until the sun is really low. If the bass aren’t roving after bait, they might be out on the deepest structure. I let fly rod jigs fall over that and have been getting fish all winter over the same structure fishing from my dock. Very slow twitch and fall over the bottom contours and limited structure.
A couple of productive colors.
I guess the bass are now thinking about sex and they have moved away for the most part and moved to the north end of the lake along that sun exposed south facing shoreline. Another lake buddy saw some nests there and has been traveling by boat the 2 miles from his end to the other one. I think the bass spawn there first and then later on other banks.
Last year, mid-late March was great along my shoreline.
I got this one that went 8# on the boga right next to the dock March 19th right at about 5 pm near some cypress knees. My daughter got a 9 pound fish about 200 yards down three days earlier.
I pay attention to time of day and available light and season. Cold water, fish tend to want to warm up so they hit sun exposed areas, but bright unfiltered sunlight seems to be negative until later in the day. Then there’s the season for sex and they are often easier to get. Water about 58 degrees supposedly gets that ball rolling. That’s about where it is now. I don’t look for nests, but just fish the shorelines in a boat. I haven’t been out in the boat in a month, but will likely go soon.
After sex season, the fish are still available along the shorelines. As it gets hotter, morning fishing picks up and my shoreline turns on in the am. Even later into spring, the bass do something that I didn’t think they did. They come along in schools of 5 or 8, all big fish and rove right along the shoreline like a school of redfish. But the bass don’t tail and they tend to move pretty fast. Anything out front of them gets creamed including any handy lure or fly. My daughter has witnessed this also on several occasions.
Fishing seems pretty good until about early July. Sometimes, weird algae outbreaks affect the water color and clarity and that gives the fish lockjaw. Those happen more in heat of summer. Then the water clears some and the fishing improves.