Ice Cold day

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After three back to back cancellations due to the weather, I was back on the water again today. Scott, Manson & Corey were with me looking for more bronzebacks and hoping for some giants. I was just praying that the deep freeze didn’t send them into a lockjaw mode!

Once we broke some ice to get out to the lake, I was surprised to see that the water temps had only dropped to 48 degrees. Amazingly, we had lost just 3.5 degrees since the last time I was out!

Scott was fishing slower than usual this morning due to a rough night, but this would actually be in his favor. With overcast skies and cooler water temps, the metabolism of the bass would be reduced. Fishing slow would be the way to go! He locked up on his first cast but soon found out that it wasn’t what we were after. It was a fall fish and quickly returned to the water unharmed. Not long after however, he nailed another and this time, it was what we were after. Although not a monster, it was photo worthy and made the cut. Manson also hooked into a fish but his too wasn’t what we were after and also returned.

The fishing was definitely tough but I knew they were here and had everyone slow down their presentations in order to get bit. It paid off as several good fish were landed by each of them from the area we were in. Corey managed to hook into a few beauties, but somehow lost the biggest ones while battling them. He did however bring another good one to net before we relocated though!

I decided to cover some water in search of more fish and trolled outside edges, looking for big arches. I marked plenty but for some reason they didn’t want to chase. This would have been a great time to fish live minnows, but under the circumstances, it was out of the question! We would just have to tempt then with artificials! We moved along slowly and eventually a few of the fish I was marking began to cooperate. Manson hooked up and brought a nice one to net that was worthy of a pic. A little while later, Corey hooked into what turned out to be big fish of the day. It was definitely the quality we were after and things were finally looking up! I really thought they were going to start crushing the fish, but this wasn’t the case. Instead, they just picked at them again with one here and one there!

I moved around plenty and each place we stopped, someone hooked up. Manson eventually got into his grove and nailed several on a jig. It wasn’t easy today but the fish were all pretty good ones! Slow was definitely the word of the day and unless you were paying attention, hits were missed. With each new location someone got bit, so I decided to move often in order to keep them locked up.

The last two areas we fished for the day produced some nice fish once again, but it was tough. Corey monopolized one spot by hooking all the fish and landed 75% of his hookups. In fact his final fish of the day was a really good one and became the last pic of the day as well. We were done!

Although today may not have been one of those high number days, it was definitely another quality fish one. I expect the coming weeks to be no different with water temps constantly falling. A little sunshine may get the bass chewing better, but lately that’s not the case. Overcast days have been the norm and I know just what to expect. Slower presentations are accounting for bigger fish and that’s exactly how we’re going to continue to fish. I’ll be back out again real soon!