Timing it right!

By: Ryan Clark


     Winter fishing is all about picking your days and locations.  Certain weather patterns call for different locations to be fished effectively.  We've been waiting for a particular series of events to fall into place for "Location A" for 3 weeks and it finally happened.  It turned out to be, what todays youth would say, "EPIC."  

     The local meteorologist called for some pretty awful weather for the week ahead.  Luckily for us there was a "pot o' gold" at the end of that rainbow.  Four days of sub freezing cold and 30 mph winds would make way to a beautiful day of sunshine and 61 degree warmth.  Our target destination had a shallow, black, and muddy bottom and we knew that with even a little bit of sunshine that the bass would make their way to "skinny water" in a hurry to warm themselves up and get a full belly.  This is exactly what happened.

 

     Between the four of us we ended up landing 37 fish that included Bass, Pickerel and Crappie.  The Pickerel were relentless with a 4:1 ratio of Pickerel to Bass.  Countless fish were lost during the fight and many more right at the sides of the boats.  I lost a 5 pound largemouth as I went in for the lip and I'm sure passers by would have thought Mike Iaconelli himself was out there in that kayak.  Throughout the day many more obscenities echoed across the lake and we all knew a nice fish was lost.

 

   
 It was a pretty incredible day with the amount of action that we had.  90% of the fish were caught on fluke style baits in a foot or less of water.  Made for some pretty intense top-water action too.  Topwater Bass in January in Virginia?!?!  CRAZY!!!