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Natural Elements and Bass Fishing

There is no time of year that nature becomes the key to catching fish like the winter on most bass fishing lakes. There are many signs during the winter that lead you to the active bass; you must however embrace nature and use the signs as a source of information to find the fish. There are many story telling signs but the keys to success are just a few: food source, birds feeding, structure and cover are all key elements to a successful day on the water in the winter time. Sure, there are others like water temperature, water clarity, seasonal patterns, weather patterns and more but if you focus on the keys of nature, you will be successful.

One of the most telling details for me is always birds feeding, if you’re fishing an area and look off a half mile away and see gulls diving and feeding you best move your boat to that area to find out if the bass are also feeding on the same bait the gulls are feasting on! Gulls, Loons, Pelicans all feed on bait fish and take in tremendous amounts of food during a feeding day and you can bet they will lead you to bass feeding also. We have all invested large amounts of money in our electronics on our boats, if you haven’t learned how to spot bait balls on your electronics then make it a New Years Resolution to do so as it will be a big addition to your ability to find bass especially in the winter! Lastly don’t ignore the obvious, a laydown stuck on top of a shallow water area or hung up on a stump is a tell-tale sign of a great spot for bass to hold in the winter. Deep stumps in water that seems to have current breaks and attached structure around them always holds fish in the cold water and should never be ignored.

The other keys like water temperature, water clarity, weather and patterns all come into play in the winter and shouldn’t be ignored, but they are only a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to finding active bass in the winter. Commit your time in the winter on the key elements and you will be a better winter fisherman.

December Means Change

If you look at what to expect on Guntersville in December history says there will be more change and transition than any other time of year. We generally start the month off with fall type temperatures and as the month progresses we fall into night time temperatures in the teens. This drastic weather change moves the fish off the fall patterns and drops the water temperature drastically and hence the bass fishing changes with it.

Never in my 25 plus years of keeping my history of my fishing days on Guntersville does any month change so drastically and abruptly as does December. We go from top water fishing over shallow water to deep water, slow patient fishing where persistence and slow presentation can be the key in getting a bite. Not only slow retrieves but bait size becomes more of an issue than any other time of year; you must downsize to equal the size of the natural bait and let the bait become an easy meal for bass that are basically becoming lethargic until the weather breaks again in the spring.

One of my favorite baits in the winter in these transition times is a “Shaky head” with a sinko type worm worked over the drops and depth changes, where you find stumps or maybe deep coon tail grass still showing on your structure scan or forward sonar. I find that the bass movement in December even though drastic in abruptness as it pertains to weather and water temperature the bass move in steps and December is so early in the change that their movement is not far from some of their fall hang outs, just a little deeper. Fish movement is expected, keeping up with them is the challenge. Key is to follow the bait as they move so do the bass; if you aren’t seeing bait you’re in the wrong place!

Lastly as December is full of weather change and every day can be different; bass will find the warmer days and still move up and back to feed until some consistent cold weather just drives them to the suspending stage for some enduring length of time. December fishing is all about change and if you have the ability to change with it you can still have a productive December.

A Few Habits of Big Bass

As we approach winter and the spring the bigger fish will focus on certain habits that will repeat themselves from their many years of surviving the fishing pressure that today’s lakes receive all over the country.

The one thing you can count on is that bigger female bass become routine in their search for food, they don’t stray far from their protection areas that they are use too and they are very routine in their feeding habits. Meaning they generally feed at dawn and dusk and don’t stray far for food. They have a very regimented schedule just like the older generation of today has in our world. Meaning you should be able to find them routinely in their protected environment and they should be stacked up together just like a coffee shop full of old folks around the same table.

Big bass live in the most protected areas of the lake, they like the heaviest cover, they stay away from other predators, especially bigger ones and they like creek channels, weed edges and grass line breaks that drop into deep water for protection. One thing that I have also noticed is that the bigger bass like contour breaks that they can hide up against like inside bends where contours become grass lines that they can back up to for protection. Old roadbeds that have turns and depth change also become great preferred staging places for big fish.

Lastly big bass like big size food sources, meaning that the bigger baits emulating the food source generally catch the bigger fish. “Big baits, big fish” is an old saying that has lots of merit and proof over the years that it is true. Just work an 8-inch swim bait or a big glide bait and see the difference in the size of the fish you catch with them. The downsize of course comes in the numbers game where the bigger baits limit the amount of fish you catch but increase the size of them.

Habits are everything learn them and become a big bass fisherman!

Retrieve Speed and Results

As we approach winter fishing or late fall feed up this becomes a time of year that one of the most critical things that people do wrong shows its head. When you have trouble catching fish this time of year, it has a lot to do with how quickly you retrieve your bait while fishing! There are many ways to work a bait and certainly many of them require you to work them very quickly to produce the action the bait was designed for; however working that bait certain times of years require you to slow down and we are approaching that critical time now!

Let me give you an example, many of us are successful at fishing a frog when we burn it across a grass mat. Excellent example of when and how to catch fish; burning it does require you to change speeds and tempo many times to be successful. If you’re burning the frog without stopping, slowing, or speeding back up, then you could very well have the wrong tempo required to get a bass to bite. When your best buddy tells you to burn it and they will bite does not necessarily mean he never slows down, or stops the bait to change the tempo, this can be a critical piece of retrieve speed.

All baits we fish with require thought on the presentation; and many times the presentation you use at first light may need to be changed drastically to get the same bite at 11am. Fish are more active many times at 6am than they are at 9am and retrieve speed and tempo needs to be changed many times as the day progresses.

Lastly tournament anglers are a perfect example of critical retrieve speed. Many times a tournament angler hits the water for a practice day and really slays the fish. He goes back to the same spot at the same time of day during the tournament and can’t get his fish to bite; why? He is fishing with a different tempo than he did during his practice time. Not realizing how critical this can be, his body is hyped up and the speed and tempo at which he catches fish in practice has changed! His adrenaline changed his tempo and hence his bite. Thought is everything when it comes to retrieve speed!