In the spring, a more attractive alternative might be to slowly work spinnerbaits with trailers. You can still get the brush-bumping effect to excite the bass, yet not lose a lot of hardware in the waiting limbs of treacherous mesquite trees. With the turbidity, you don't have to worry about bass being line-shy. In other words, use the heaviest strength line your outfit allows. Of course, somehow I manage to lose a spinnerbait or two anyway. But there's nothing like the feel of a good-sized bass busting a spinnerbait going through brush.

TONTO ARM
On the other end of the lake, the Tonto arm can be a little less stained, depending on runoff down Tonto Creek. But it has flats full of submerged brush, along with huge cottonwood galleries and a giant forest of dense mesquites. Fishing in that area is about as close to fishing in a jungle as you can get in Arizona. It's not the best place to take a shiny new bass boat or for trying lightweight line and finesse techniques.

Be sure to pay attention to the buoys: some bald eagles are nesting on a huge cottonwood in this area. The closed nesting area is marked, and bald-eagle nest-watchers keep close tabs on anglers. It's a good idea to give this area a wide birth. But keep an eye peeled to catch a glimpse of those magnificent bald eagles, which just might be fishing nearby.

Where Tonto Creek flows into the lake basks an area of submerged cottonwood galleries and mesquite. It is flippin' and pitchin' heaven. There's not much like it in Arizona right now, except for where the Bill Williams River enters Alamo Lake. It's almost amazing to be in 50 feet of water and still have 30 or 40 feet of cottonwood towering above you. Each of those cottonwoods could hide an army of bass. And there is an army of cottonwoods surrounded by a vast forest of mesquites. It can be daunting at times.

It's fun to fish along the submerged Tonto Creek channel ambling through this impressive submerged forest. The creek channel is really a bass super-highway. Bends in the old creek channel can provide some interesting bass-congregating spots. Many years ago, not long after Lake Pleasant filled, I watched one of our super anglers, John Murray, sit atop one such spot while pre-fishing for a tournament and pull out one lunker after another.

The Tonto end of the lake also has some huge flats that attract spawning bass like Phoenix freeways attract cars on workday mornings. You might find only 3 or 4 feet of water spreading across immense areas of submerged brush. It's a blast to burn a spinnerbait (work it real fast) or a crankbait across these flats to try and get a reaction bite. Quite often, the excited bass will bust just behind the bait. Either have a second pole rigged with a flutter-down type bait, or have your backseat partner so equipped and ready to cast into the action.

Fishing the edge of these flats adjacent to deeper water is the one place where using a drop-shot rig for staging bass makes perfect sense.