Cold Weather = Big Bass

By: Michael Manning


       Earlier in the week I drove by a small neighborhood lake and immediately said to myself "there has to be bass in there."  Luckily it had a public park right on the water so it was game on. That's the great thing about having a kayak; you can pretty much fish anywhere. One of the best resources a kayak angler has is Google Earth because a quick satellite view around your address will show you every little hidden pond or lake that doesn't get pressured like the big lakes.

 

       Throughout the week the temperature rose quickly and it almost hit 80 degrees on Friday. Even though an abrupt cool down to 40 degrees was coming on Saturday, those few days of nice weather warmed the lakes and ponds up enough to get the bass moving back up to the shallows to feed. Saturday morning was 40 degrees with light rain and 15-20 mph winds. We dropped in at the new pond and started casting everything we had with no love from the bass. After a couple of hours we packed up the trucks and headed for another lake to try our luck.

       The second lake looked promising with plenty of rocks, docks, and submerged bushes. With the cold front still pushing 15 mph winds across the lake, I went around throwing a heavy jig, drop shot, and jerk bait at every cove, point, and piece of structure I could find with no luck. With no love on the slow baits I decided to speed it up a bit with a crankbait diving 4 to 6 feet. As soon as I start casting it my buddy Jesse lets out a yell and I turn around to see him hooked up. When I paddled over to him I saw a massive mouth come flying out of the water beside his kayak. He landed a nice fat citation largemouth on a crankbait similar to one I had just tied on.

 

       Now it was my turn. I picked apart the two coves with a little shelter from the wind with no luck on the crankbait and I was starting to think that I was leaving with a big skunk. I noticed that the crank bait was quickly hitting the bottom and the jerk bait didn't work, so my last chance was to slow roll a spinner bait at all depths to see if the slow change would work. Second cast with the spinner bait and it was game on. After a nice fight while dodging tree limbs in the wind, I landed my fatty of the day. She fell about 1 inch short of a length citation, but that fish made the whole day worth it.

      The warm weather days of catching double digit bass on topwater seem to be gone, but the bass don't head south for the winter. These fish will move off the banks and you may have to slow down your presentation to catch the lethargic bass in the winter, but a slight temperature change in the water can get them chasing baits again. Don't think that just because the weather cooled down the bass fishing over, these hogs will bite all winter. With a little research on winter bass fishing, you can catch these fish all year long. Comment with any questions about catching bass in the winter.
      

Twice no Dice.

By: Ryan Clark


     It was 0400 and 26 degrees when we were heading out of Virginia Beach for the second time this month.  Hopefully it would warm up a few degrees by the time we reached Hopewell.  Well, it didn't.  As we pulled into the parking lot it was still 26 degrees outside but we warmed up quick with the excitement of  what fish were lurking in the depths below us.  This was home to some of the largest Blue Catfish in the country.

     We got unloaded and carried the yaks down to the water right at sunrise so we weren't breaking any State laws about using a park before it was open. When we got there we had the perfect view of an amazing sunrise.

     It was now that I got the cast net out and tried to get a few shad for fresh bait before we launched but after a few throws by both of us we didn't catch any.  So we were stuck using frozen menhaden and eels for the day.

     We had decided on a plan for the day and stuck to it pretty well.  We were looking for 3 things; Structure on a drop-off with bait.  We found the first spot pretty quickly and decided to set up.  The bottom went from 4 feet to 20 feet almost vertically with some legs of a channel marker mixed in.

     We had bites immediately but not the size we were looking for and after about an hour we moved on.  Again looking for the 3 rights, we found a slow sloping edge with a quick step and some submerged junk underneath.  Again, bites but much smaller than we were looking for.  We pulled anchor and moved on again.

     After a few more moves and a bunch more small fish we decided to start heading back to the launch.  we found one last spot we wanted to try and this was going to be the spot; we just knew it.

     Nope, no big fat cats here either.  Just a bunch of sub-20inch fish.  We only caught a handful of small fish for the day due to the large 7/0 circle hooks we were using, but were getting bites at every spot we went to.  Could have been much more fun if I stepped down to a 2/0 hook with some smaller baits, but that is not why we went to the Mighty James.  Maybe the third time really will be a charm.