Fishing trip (sort of)`

[BigBassin144]

My dad and me went to a new fishing spot yesterday. It is behind a local superstore, and there are actualy two of them. And sorry, no pics.
One, the one we tried first was like a jungle. I was tangled in dead trees before my popper even hit the water. Anyways, it was shallow form what we could tell from shore, and had THICK algae growing on the bottom because the water was very clear. I let my spinnerbait sink in the algae about 3' from shore and I tought it was about 4" - 6" deep. I even tryed jigs, but they even came up covered in this stuff. We caught zero fish.
The other was much, much, clearer (I am referring to the forest around the pond). The water clarity was about the same and it was much shallow shallower. This one is in the middle of a bunch of office buildings and stuff with a road running around it. I tryed everything in my tackle box except a crankbait. My used a Bandit 100 series shallow diver, baby bluegill colored, and reeled it really slow so it wouldn't dive far. He hooked at a decent bass for our area, we guesstimated it at 12-14" and it turned out to be a long distance C&R. then he caught the biggest bass I've seen in person. he was 19" long and 11" around, for a weight of 3.31 lbs. I got skunked again.
Any Tips for fishing shallow clear water like this. oh yeah, there is a big fountain in the middle of it and lots of Geese at this time of year (I don't know if this'll make a difference).