Mark Twain is credited with saying: “If you don't like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.”, but you and I both know he really was talking about north Georgia.
In the past three weeks I have fished in a T-shirt, heavy-duty rain gear and a snowmobile suit. I have shivered, sweated and been soaked. I’ve peeled ice of my rod guides and wiped perspiration off my forehead.
Since the middle of January, I’ve been on the lake when it was so smooth you could see a feather floating on the glassy surface a quarter-mile away, and I’ve been on the lake when 3-foot waves crashed across my bow.
What a winter it has been; and we’ve still got six more weeks of it (officially) left.
So here is my best advice if you are headed to the water: try everything you know, realizing that once you figure out what the fish want they will suddenly change to something else.
It’s referred to as “junk-fishing”.
In one day I’ve caught bass on topwater busting schools of shad, on a jig skipped under a boat dock walkway in less than 2-feet of water, and then caught them jigging spoon 50-feet deep.
Okay, that tip doesn’t really help you much, I know, but here are a couple generalities I’d like to share that might help, especially when a high-pressure front suddenly moves in and seemingly shuts down the fishing.
- That frontal passage probably has given the shallow fish lockjaw.Accept the reality.The fish that were anxious to spawn and moved shallow early will be hit the hardest; they will pull away from the bank, suspend and become almost impossible to catch.
So don’t fish for them. Instead, target the next wave of fish moving in for the spawn – those just starting to move from the deep main lake waters into the mouths of the spawning coves.
All the fish in the lake don’t spawn at the same time so focus on those fish that are not nearly as affected by the high pressure, i.e. the fish just getting the urge to look for love and beginning to make their way towards the spawning area.
Fish the main lake points with a jig or shakeyhead worm. A jerkbait can also be very productive under these conditions.
2. Fish the ditches (I’ve described this technique in several of my other blogs and won’t bore you by being repetitive.) but look for vertical surfaces along the ditch.
In other words, as you graph the ditch look for areas where one side of the ditch rises suddenly toward the surface, like a bluff wall buried under 40-feet of water. This is prime real estate for catching good fish.
Bass use the ditches to navigate their way into and out of a spawning cove. It is their roadmap or reference point as they travel shallow. When a cold front hits, these vertical edges will congregate the fish, as they await improving weather so they can make their next move toward the spawning grounds.
Fish them slowly with a worm or a jig; keep a drop shot ready and available for the schools of fish that will look like “spaghetti” on your sonar.
3. Know that Twain was right: if you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute.Fishing trips right now are either outrageously awesome or outrageously awful.There hasn’t been much middle ground…but tomorrow brings another opportunity: explore it.
