Smallmouth & Spotted Bass - your cold water alternative by Tyler Brinks

Smallmouth & Spotted Bass - your cold water alternative
by Tyler Brinks

The water temperature obviously plays a huge role in the activity of bass, but it may not be as important as you might think. When talking with a fisheries biologist, he mentioned that water temperature is important; but it is relative to the geography and location of the lake. as you can imagine, bass in colder climates become more acclimated to cold water situations and are not as affected by a drop in water temperature, even in the middle of the winter. a more crucial factor is the length of the day; because this has a bigger impact on the crawfish and their activities are followed closely by the bass. as the length of days shortens and the crawfish start to burrow, it can change how bass feed. The bigger crawfish will often head into the ground, leaving only the juvenile crawfish behind. The smaller crawfish will often stay out of the ground all year long and instead they will just hide behind rocks. This change in availability of bait will often force bass to focus on small baitfish as well as smaller sized crawfish. Because of this, my bait selection changes greatly during the colder months.

BAIT SELEcTIOn

in my opinion, the bait selection during the colder months is one of the simplest it can be throughout the year. Unlike the other seasons, bass in the winter typically will not chase just about anything in different levels of the water column. For me, the colder months can be fished with three major baits; a tube, jig and a drop-shot worm. For drop-shot fishing, i like to use a variety of soft plastics ranging from the very small to the standard worm. a three-inch Berkley twitchtail Minnow is my go-to when targeting smallmouth that are keying on small baitfish. i will also use a 4.5-inch or 6-inch robo straight-tail worm. The majority of the time, i will fish the drop-shot with a 3/16-oz eco Pro tungsten Pro drop Shot weight and will only go to a heavier weight if i am forced to because of deeper water or windy conditions. Jig fishing is well known as a way to catch bigger than average fish. due to fact that the fish are less active and the bigger crawdads are usually burrowed into the ground, i will use a small finesse jig. My favorite is a 5/16-oz taylor Man’s t-Man’s Finesse Jig.

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