Well, Happy New Year guys. For those of you that happen to be in an area where your lake or river hasn't frozen over, this could be a really fun time to go fishing. It's a unique time because most of the time you're by yourself. There's not a whole lot of boaters out there, which is nice and serene and you get to enjoy the beauty, but also you get to try to some baits and different types of fishing scenarios that you normally don't encounter the rest of the year.
So let me give you some ideas here to. Get the juices flowing and help your productivity during this time of year. First of all, you got to fish a little bit deeper and that's, you know, relatively speaking, but deeper than what you normally would see the bass during the rest of the year. And that allows you to do a few things.
First of all, get offshore and find those humps and ridges and ledges and creek channels and rock piles that you normally don't fish the rest of the year. And you get to fish them with unique baits such as blade baits and spoons and tailspinners, which you can fish vertically, you can jig them. And you know, the, the cool thing about these baits is that they, they get down there quickly, They can get down the bottom, they can. And they vibrate pretty good when you lift them up off the bottom and let them drop and they resemble these dying bait fish. So lifting and dropping them and fishing them vertically is just a whole different way of fishing for the most part than you do the rest of the season. So it's going to be a real fun way of fishing.
One of the things is when you're looking for these hot spots is don't just go out there and deep and try to find something, but look for areas like that that are near shallow water maybe a long tapering point or a secondary flat or submerged flat, or maybe it's near shallow area where the fish are going to be. When they spend the rest of the year, when the months are warmer, the fish aren't going to really travel that far. So the ones that you can find those deeper areas that are close to nearby, those areas tend to congregate the bass.
Now one of the baits that works really well in cold water is the A rig, the Alabama rig or the umbrella rig. Now these, if you haven't seen them before, well, first of all, check this out. This is a little, look how I store my A-Rigs. I just got a water bottle here and I just cut off the bottom of it and I can store it in there. But the Alabama rig is basically this, right? It's got all these baits on it, it's got a head on the front of it, and it looks like a little school of bait fish. And they've been just absolutely outstanding during the cold winter months.
Check the regs in your state. This one in particular has only three hooks on it, but some actually it has a hook on every one of them. Some states only let you have 1 hook or some number in between that. So make sure you got the right one for your state regs. But you know, you tie on a little 2 1/2 three inch paddle tail plastic on the end of it and it just looks like a little school of bait fish and the bass. And this very productive lore, very, very productive way efficient, however. They weigh a lot, which is both good and bad. I mean they cast a million miles and they can get down deep quick, which is those areas you're efficient however. Man, it can really make your arm sore at the end of the day of fishing. It's hard to fish.
So a couple things I do with that. First of all is just. Use the right rod and reel. You want a medium heavy fast action rod or maybe even a heavy power rod and 15 LB test line. Makes it a little bit easier, you know, 7 foot 3 to 7 foot 6 rod. Got some more leverage to it. Makes a little bit easier to fish these things, but also I don't use them to search the water like you would say, a crankbait. I would use these to target specific areas where the fish might be at.
So steeper banks during this time of year, banks that have scattered logs or scattered boulders, any kind of cover that the bass can relate to. Heck, it could be parts of a sunken dock or even a shopping cart. There's not a whole lot down there this time of year, not a lot of weeds particularly. So it's something the bass can relate to. In that steep type of bank, that's an area I would target with an Alabama rig.
Bridge pilings can also be really productive, particularly if you've got, you know, sometimes on lakes you've got these peninsulas that come out or two points that come out and then the bridge is right there between them. Those points, they form a funnel area. And that little funnel area can be dynamite for fishing deep. So make sure you fish the edges and also the bridge pilings with an Alabama rig and it can be very, very productive. Other than that, I wouldn't just be casting and winding and fishing a whole bunch of different areas just to save my arms. But the Alabama rig, make sure you try it during this time of year.
Now jerkbaits are great during the winter time. Jerk baits. I'm talking about the deeper diving jerk baits. I'm talking about the suspending jerk baits. You know, something like this that gets down there to 10-12 foot deep and then just sits there and hovers and just hangs. You can cast them out, reel them down to their diving depth and just pause, real long pauses and just let it sit in front of the fish’s face. Give it a little nudge or a little twitch with your rod tip and then let it sit again.
And sometimes these pauses can be really long, 30 seconds, 60 seconds long. But sometimes that's what it takes to entice a bite under really cold conditions and when the bass are just aren't in the mood to bite. On the other hand, the cool thing about jerk baits is you can fish them fast too. You can do the traditional pop, pop pause, pop pop, pause, pop, pop pause and get a reaction strike out of them during, especially when you get a little warm spell that comes up. The fish move up a little bit shallower. You can use a little bit shallower bait like this that dives maybe down to 8 foot deep. And you can get a lot of bytes that way fishing aggressively or go along the riprap.
Riprap tends to warm up quicker during those warm conditions. And that's the bass will go up in there because of the forage will be there. Crawdads will come out, the baitfish will come up there and the bass will chase them too. And you can be fishing maybe in five to 10 foot of water for a little while. And that quicker cadence can be the key. So the key cool thing about jerk baits is that you can fish them in virtually any kind of depth and at any rate. As far as cadence is concerned, and you can catch a lot of fish so make sure you get some jerk baits on hand.
One other thing to do is to seek out grass. Like I mentioned earlier, just briefly, but there's not a whole lot of grass remaining right now. This time of year. Most of it's died off. But if you can find little patches of grass somewhere, that's going to be a magnet for forage and for bass. So look for those areas. This can be a little pockets and little covered areas that are protected where you don't get a lot of wind and action and you get those little bays might warm up a little bit more. Keep that grass alive.
Clear water. You can find it in deeper areas like 20 foot deep. You can find remaining grass down there. Anywhere that's you can find that you may have to use your depth Finder, look a little bit or maybe use a deep diving crankbait and dig up some grass. If you can find some green weeds. That's money. You want to fish that, especially if it's in those deeper banks, those dock pilings, bridge pilings, humps, creek edges, those type of things. if you can find those in combination with grass. That's what you want to fish.
How you want to fish them. Well, the jig is like the main way most people fish this time of year. You can get it down there right along the wheat edge and just crawl it along the bottom. Maybe hop and pop a little bit, but just crawl it along the edge of those weeds and if there's any bass around there, they'll pick it up and hit it.
Another way you can fish them is with. A Rat-L-Trap. You know, a lipless crankbait. You can, you can sink at any depth, throw it out there, let it reach that depth and then slowly pull it along just the tops of those weeds, ticking the weeds. Every once in a while. If you get it hung up, give it a little pop to get those weeds off of it. Sometimes it'll quick erratic change in direction as all as it takes to get those bass to bite and trigger a bite.
So you know, those are two different lures and one other one I would I would throw in a drop shot. The drop shot is something that you use to really take apart an area once you've found it and if you find a patch of weeds you know it's not going to go for very long. So fish that area thoroughly with a drop shot with say a 3 or 4 inch finesse worm on it and go to town. You can work that area really thoroughly and pick up a bunch of bass. Especially if you've gone through with faster moving baits and you've picked up some fish. This is a great way to go back through it with a slower moving bait and pick off a few more remaining fish that maybe didn’t want to hit that faster moving lure.
So with those tricks and tricks and tactics all lined up, you can catch a lot of bass this January. For more tips and tricks like this, visit bassresource.com.
