Water cooled down to 56* after the recent storms, but things are still pretty quiet with the bite with nothing over 2.5 lbs. 

 

This guy looked a little skinny in the pic but was healthy with 2 shad in his gullet.

 

Pops with a 2 pounder on a Ned

 

2.5 pounder on a Neko

Spectacular looking fish. Scale perfect and beautifully marked.

 

Likely the last day on open water in a boat for me this year. Every pond I went past this afternoon had skim ice on it. Got in 3.5 hours this afternoon on a small reservoir with 40 degree water temps, and managed to connect with 8 fish. Could be a long winter, but hopefully we get some breaks in the weather here and there. We'll see.

 

 

 

 

Went out with (B)assman again yesterday to a few local ponds, we had a good day. Threw several different baits, they seemed to like the blades as they were killing my RoadRunner 

Rapidly dropping temps, rapidly building winds, off and on drizzle, beautiful day on the water Monday ? One other boat at the ramp when I showed up. He told me to go ahead, he was going to wait for a minute. I launched, he waited a few more minutes and then just left? Only other boat I saw the 6+ hours I was on the water. With the wind and clouds, seemed like a moving bait bite would be going, but that wasn't what I found for the most part. I got 2 on a squarebill, 1 on a jerkbait, the rest were on a Ned or shakyhead. The most important fish of the day was on the squarebill though. Built like a brick, barely longer than my 18" board and 5lbs right on the button.

Took a while to dial in the slow moving bite, and it was painfully difficult to do in 20+mph winds, but I was really working them over for a while.

Caught this 4 pounder on a Berkley Warpig in Red Craw at one of my favorite ponds. 37° weather with most of the pond iced over.

On 12/11/2019 at 2:22 AM, Bluebasser86 said:

Rapidly dropping temps, rapidly building winds, off and on drizzle, beautiful day on the water Monday ? One other boat at the ramp when I showed up. He told me to go ahead, he was going to wait for a minute. I launched, he waited a few more minutes and then just left? Only other boat I saw the 6+ hours I was on the water. With the wind and clouds, seemed like a moving bait bite would be going, but that wasn't what I found for the most part. I got 2 on a squarebill, 1 on a jerkbait, the rest were on a Ned or shakyhead. The most important fish of the day was on the squarebill though. Built like a brick, barely longer than my 18" board and 5lbs right on the button.

 

 

Took a while to dial in the slow moving bite, and it was painfully difficult to do in 20+mph winds, but I was really working them over for a while.

 

 

 

 

I'm very impressed!! Way to get out there when most people wanna stay at home. 

How deep were you getting your ned/shakeyhead fish? Squarebill indicates not much depth despite colder water temps. 

In high winds, could you fish a dropshot with a heavy weight? 

Most of them were in 1-3 feet of water. I've tried with a dropshot in the same places and they will not eat it, have never even had a bite on it.

 

5.7 pounds.  .725 if I wanna squeeze what the scale said.  She gave my finesse jig a tick and I was able to get in an eye crossing hookset before landing her on the 13 Fate Chrome 7'1" MF with the Daiwa Fuego 7.3:1 strung up with @J Francho's favorite line, Berkley Vanish.

 

That YUM Craw Chunk keeps putting big fish on the end of my line.

 

On 12/11/2019 at 4:22 AM, Bluebasser86 said:

Rapidly dropping temps, rapidly building winds, off and on drizzle, beautiful day on the water Monday ? One other boat at the ramp when I showed up. He told me to go ahead, he was going to wait for a minute. I launched, he waited a few more minutes and then just left? Only other boat I saw the 6+ hours I was on the water. With the wind and clouds, seemed like a moving bait bite would be going, but that wasn't what I found for the most part. I got 2 on a squarebill, 1 on a jerkbait, the rest were on a Ned or shakyhead. The most important fish of the day was on the squarebill though. Built like a brick, barely longer than my 18" board and 5lbs right on the button.

 

 

Nice work! What squarebill is that? Looks killer but I don't recognize it.

It's a custom made balsa bait that a local guy makes. It's been my best producing crank the last month.

43 degrees and spitting rain yesterday...... perfect!!!

On 12/11/2019 at 3:22 AM, Bluebasser86 said:

 Built like a brick, barely longer than my 18" board and 5lbs right on the button.

 

Wow! She's done well for herself!

Decided to finish up the fall on the same pond I've fished through the entire fall transition, a shallow dishpan carpeted wall to wall with coontail. 42F core water, and super high clarity. The winter clear-water period is on. I could have seen straight to the bottom, if not for all that coontail. I've rarely fished such weedy waters during winter, opting for those with more open water. But, I decided to give it a shot, just to see what I could find. With the clear water I went Ned, with a 1/16oz Slider head, and found a couple. What this fishing lacked in numbers was made up in sheer beauty of those winter clear water fish. They are simply stunning; A metallic bronze-gold, yellow flanks, and prominant markings. The GoPro just doesn't do them justice.

 

 

 

 

Nice looking fish, Paul.  I have a small 55 acre lake that is a good clear water winter fishery as well.  Not only are the fish stunning, but this lake produces mostly deep water catches in the winter and I can watch them fighting down deep as I bring them in.  Unfortunately, I haven't bought an action camera like the GoPro to film them as I bring them up.  

Some dink action before work. Beautiful pattern on this one.

 

I should add that I caught this on a @Siebert Outdoors dock rocker (off a dock, obvs) with a cut-down Sweet Beaver on the back. Little guy hit it like it called his mama names.

 

Edited December 16, 20196 yr by galyonj
Added stuff

4 hours ago, senile1 said:

Nice looking fish, Paul.  I have a small 55 acre lake that is a good clear water winter fishery as well.  Not only are the fish stunning, but this lake produces mostly deep water catches in the winter and I can watch them fighting down deep as I bring them in.  Unfortunately, I haven't bought an action camera like the GoPro to film them as I bring them up.  

Hi, Ed. Sounds wonderful. It really is neat seeing the fish fighting down through clear water. If you ever decide to film them, you'll want a hat-cam, so the camera can be as directly above them as possible, and a polarizer. Don't use the elastic headband type, or you'll end up with a headache! Get one that's integral with a cap. Mine is made by Smatree.

We had a good amount of snow Sunday, a little more snow Monday, and temps barely climbing above 20 with 10-15 mph north winds, but that's my day to fish so away I went. I forgot my snow shovel, and they hadn't cleared or salted the ramp. Thankfully they maintenance guys forgot to put their snow shovel away before they left the shop by the ramp so I borrowed theirs and spent half and hour clearing snow and ice. Still slid a little launching, forgot to take my motor support off so got my hand wet removing that. Did my customary flip to the end of the dock jetty with a Ned and thought I bumped a rock but it felt mushy? Swung and nothing but looked like a little swirl came to the top. Flipped back at it, felt a for sure peck and missed it again. Dropped it on him again and it mushed up again, bam, snow bass.

My guides were icing up fast, so were my reels. My braid was freezing on my Ned rig reel so it was almost refusing to go onto the reel and knotted up on me bad twice, plus I'm pretty sure the ice cut my line on the hookset once (still got the fish though). I worked for 8-10 fish in the 4 hours I could stand it before I threw in the towel. I did get one pretty healthy fish on a sexy gold 2tap.

I don't know how you do it. Anything 32* or less and I'm holding my hand warmer on my last 2 or 3 guides every couple of casts. That's when I call it quits.

Hit a confidence pond today in 27° weather and was rewarded with 2 nice ones. Top 2 are the same bass and bottom 2 are the same. Used  a cut down Junebug Hula Stick

 

 

 

 

 

17 hours ago, Midwest Fisherman said:

Hit a confidence pond today in 27° weather and was rewarded with 2 nice ones.

Beautiful fish! Miss me with that weather, though.

On 12/17/2019 at 1:11 PM, Midwest Fisherman said:

Hit a confidence pond today in 27° weather and was rewarded with 2 nice ones. 

 

Wow! Pretty, pretty!

 

Neat that people are out there catching em in the winter. Wasn't always like that. "You can't catch bass in winter!"

Found just enough open water on one pond today to make a few casts into, but that was enough. Mission accomplished