Cold Water Largies

By: Guardian Angler

The morning dew is beginning to turn into a crisp frost as the mornings become a cold blast each sunrise. Temperatures are on a steady decline each week as harsh winter approaches, and most anglers are beginning to put open water gear away and start prepping for the hard-water season. The bite becomes slow and, in many cases, nonexistent and not worth chasing…but the giants still need to feed. Whether it’s late fall or early spring many anglers hang their hats and would rather wait for warm weather to chase bass, but they are making huge mistakes on doing that.

This may not be the most productive time to get numbers, but it can be some of the best times to chase giants. Here are a few tips to help you do so. We have all heard the phrase “match the hatch” right? Extremely cold temps don’t necessarily follow that rule, but instead, you might want to try focusing on matching the action.

Spring and summer you can investigate the shallows and see minnows shimmering and flickering around, while in colder temperatures you see less. It’s not that those minnows are not around, it’s just that they are much more lethargic and inactive. Same with your other bait such as bluegill and shad, they aren’t going to be screaming through the water at a hundred miles an hour to escape a predator, but more of just a casual cruise. They don’t want to expend extra energy that they are trying to use for body heat because just like us humans, fish must expend energy to raise internal body temperatures. For that reason, it’s time to put away those square bill crankbaits, the chatter baits, swim jigs, and anything else that has an aggressive action.

Instead, pick up a lipless crankbait or a blade bait when covering water and searching for fish. Throw that bait out and let it fall to the bottom. Once it hits the bottom start to raise it up using your rod and not the reel. It’s going to feel closer to hopping a Texas rig, rather than working crankbait. When you think you’re fishing too slow, slow down even more…it’s going to feel wrong, but believe me you’re on the right track. I have caught more fish doing this, than any other tactic in cold water. It’s a great way to cover water, but you might need to switch it up when fishing near a lot of snags.

 So, you come across some brush while throwing your lipless bait but are afraid of snagging into it with those exposed hooks. There are a few great options in these areas that will allow you to pick it apart while keeping that cold fish action. The most obvious and one of my favorites is a fluke-style bait on a weighted hook. Fish it exactly how you would with the lipless bait. This can be an extremely useful tactic and a tactic that many anglers will often overlook. The slow fall of the fluke will often attract bites from lethargic bass, and you will only see from a light jump in the line, so keep an eye on the line the entire time. If you are ever unsure, set the hook, hooksets are free.

So, you’ve tried lipless baits and flukes with no luck. Now it’s time to try and slow down even more. Most anglers will turn to a jerk bait, or a ned rig at this point. Both are good options, but there are also a couple of options that get overlooked this time of year. In my arsenal, I include weightless wacky rigs, small finesse jigs, and drop shots. Keep it slow and keep it light. Bites on all three of these are going to be extremely subtle so you want as little weight as possible to help detect them. Let those baits soak before moving them, they all have action without having to work them, whether it’s in a pulsing skirt or in the tail bouncing subtly. Take 30-second pauses from time to time, fish will eat them when they are sitting in front of their face. In fall and early winter don’t be afraid to go big with these options. Fish are going to still be feeding up for full-blown winter, and big baits can often attract fish. But, in early spring and late winter, downsize. I’ve even had success throwing large crappie baits in these time-periods. There is also another amazing option, but it is highly controversial in the bass fishing world.

Tournament anglers, you might want to skip this section; it might just make you vomit…but this option has been some of my best success in cold water. Live bait! It cuts out all the struggles of trying to match a cold baitfish because it acts how it needs to on its own. Fish in the middle of the water column and be patient. Bass will stalk live bait for a good amount of time before eating this time of year, and you don’t want to move that bait away from a big one before it even has a chance to eat! Golden roaches, shiners, and shad are all great options for live bait this time of year. Bass are always going to munch on one of them because they are high in fats and proteins in comparison to crawdads. Instincts will always tell them to eat one when given an easy meal. The only question is where to throw your line out at.  

Location is probably the most crucial part of fishing in cold water. When those temps drop the fish bunch up, so the good news is when you find one, there are more nearby…unfortunately that also means that there is a lot of water with no fish in close proximity, so having a good starting location is key. Now this is a topic I can write 18 pages on and still have more to talk about, but for the sake of keeping things simple, I’m going to discuss three major components in finding cold-watered largemouth bass. The first is depth, your areas of best success are going to be between five and 15 feet of water (I have found shallower water holds bigger, more active fish as the deeper water holds more numbers). You are also going to want deep and shallow water within close proximity of each other. This gives these fish areas to actively hunt, as well as areas for these fish to stay hunkered down and deep. Ledges, drop-offs, humps, basins, and even shallow to intermediate flats with deep water nearby are great locations to fish. The next thing to look for is white chunk rock on the shoreline. This rock will heat the water around it on sunny days, hold baitfish as well as crawdads, and offer good cover for our favorite ambush predators to use to hunt. The third piece of this puzzle is healthy vegetation. Now this part only pertains to clear water or just after ice off.  In clear water, bass are going to hold to cover much stronger than in murky, where they are willing to stray off that cover and hunt in structureless areas. The defining factor that makes me look for grass is in that initial ice off period, that was the source of oxygen for those bass for an extended period. Not only for those bass but for the baitfish as well. Most baitfish, especially shad, are extremely sensitive to fluctuations in oxygen levels in the water; and need more oxygen than any other fish species to survive. With that being said, when no rain or wind is turning water and supplying oxygen to the water, those fish need to go somewhere to find it, so they flock to the living vegetation in the water. You find the bait; you find the bass. With all that being said, there is no tried and true method to knowing where these fish are. Every lake is different and holds fish differently, but these are some of the best starting points to look for. You usually won’t find all three in the same spot at the same time, but there are three places to try when you first get out. If they don’t work, find your favorite structure and cover, hit that windblown bank, or look for indications of bait nearby. Try practicing on small lakes and ponds before doing it out on a big lake near you. It will help build your confidence and give you the right instincts on what you need to look for before trying on a large body of water. 75% of the fish are going to be in 25% of the lake. Don’t kill your confidence by starting somewhere you will have to fish miles of lake before you find that area, they are staged in. 

Cold water can really be a feast or famine situation, but the fact of the matter is fish still got to eat. Big girls are always on the prowl for a good meal, and any opportunity is a good one to try and chase one down. Next time you see anglers hanging up their gear for the season, pull yours out and hit the water. It’s just less competition that you will have to break that lake record.