How 2-Degree Water Temperature Change Affects Winter Fishing on Guntersville

How a 2-Degree Temperature Change Affects Winter Fishing on Guntersville

In the winter water temperature can be everything in terms of improving the fishing on Lake Guntersville. A bass’s body temperature in the winter directly emulates the environment, ectothermic, slowing the bass’s metabolism. Slight increase in the afternoon water temperature on a sunny afternoon act like a car being started for the slowly moving bass in the winter. Your job is to find solutions and find and predict a pattern, then target these climate changes in the cold of the winter.

There are things that change when the water temperature increases, plankton which the bait fish feed on moves toward the warming surface and yes, the shad follow the plankton, and the bass follow the shad! There are several thermal retaining structures on Guntersville, like rock walls, bridge pilings, stumps and shell beds that absorb the heat, as they absorb the heat during the morning hours and push it out into the water by midafternoon; causing the water temperature to increase enough to fire up the bass to feed as the water temperature warms.

As the water temperature creeps from say 44 degrees to like 47 degrees bass become active and they start chasing prey as the increase requires less effort giving them the energy to feed and strike their prey.

Top structure and locations are many but here are some ideas on what to target as you look for targets to spend your time on: first North-facing banks as they are sheltered from the north wind and face the south giving them more south-facing sunlight all day long. Next is dark riprap and rock, the darker the rock the more sunlight it absorbs and the faster it warms as it acts like a heat sink. Hwy 431 causeways or Seibold bridge pilings are ideal targets for this heating effect. Also, shallow stumpy bottoms in shallow water, 3 to 5 ft. buried in red clay, and some remaining grass in the winter are key targets. Areas like the back end of Honeycomb creek or the south end of Mud Creek are terrific targets. Lastly bluff walls are ideal locations as deep vertical walls warm up at the water surface giving the bass a place to stay near deep water. Town Creek bluff or Short Creek at the mouth of the creeks become targets that I really like this time of year!