How would you fish it?

[bnt5]

Went fishing this past weekend with a priority on crappie and a small emphasis on bass, the place I was fishing was a large creek feeding the Ohio river, towards the mouth the water was 53 degrees but seriously stained, further away upstream the water was a beautiful clear green but 46 degrees and much shallower. Given this scenerio and the fact that no fish was caught what would have been the best strategy for bass (either lm or sm). The day was chilly mid 40's and mostly sunny. There is structure along the banks in the form of blow downs and some rocks/gravel the further up the creek you go, the deepest water I encountered was a hole about 16ft deep with the average between 6-10ft. Needless to say this was about 3 days after a cold front blew in and I had little hopes of lipping a fish.

[twise7]

Under those conditions...I would have stayed home and cleaned my reels. I would have thrown a red'ish colored square bill crank in the laydowns, pitched a tube and/or chigger craw in the same laydowns, threw a jerk bait over creek channel bends, slow rolled a bandit 200 on points. But with the water temps in the 40's, blue bird day, Ohio river tributary...the odds were stacked against you. Am itching to get on the river myself but it's usually may or early June before the river is what I consider "fishable".