# Winter fishing....



## RiverRat (Apr 5, 2004)

My good friend Duane was a big non-believer about winter smallie fishing. Heres one of our first trips together out in the cold...the look says " man we must be nuts"......

He is now one of the most smallie crazy guys i know, he even bought a house right on a certain stream just so he can fish whenever he wants for them..geez....he catches way more smallies than i do now and has wintering fishing down to a pure science...one day i'll come out of semi-retirement and give him a run for his money once again..lol. Hes a great guy and a great smallie angler...top notch in my book(he had a very great teacher...lol).











In this photo you can see what i mean by "structure"..lol. and YES thats snow covering that lay down tree.

Scott


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## RiverRat (Apr 5, 2004)

Another shot of what i call a little "structure"...hehehehe


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## RiverRat (Apr 5, 2004)

more "structure".....


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## RiverRat (Apr 5, 2004)

Heres a nice fish caught in the dead of winter..note the snow on the ground in the upper right hand of the picture.

Gotta love that winter time smallie coloration.











Scott


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## RiverRat (Apr 5, 2004)

last one( i promise)..


Note the very orange-ish coloration and the tiny black leaches on the under side of the smallie around its gill plates and fins...if you catch a smallie with leaches on it like this, this is KEY..pay attention..this means the fish are laying on the bottom and not moving around, nor will they move to eat a bait. You have to put the bait right in front of it to get a strike, thats why SLOW dragging a bait works well for these times. This usually is the case in the DEAD coldest part of winter.
Now if you find NO leaches, that means they are still moving around and they will be more responsive to baits like suspending lures and such. This is usually the case in early & late winter when weathers not as harsh.


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## oufisherman (Apr 10, 2004)

Thanks for the pics Scott. That gives me a little preview of what I hope to see in a few weeks here on the Hocking. I looked at the weather last night, and its supposed to be 30-33 all this week and sunny on Friday. I think I'm gonna give the wintertime smallie fishing a shot then in the middle of the day.


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## RiverRat (Apr 5, 2004)

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

Scott


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## leckig (May 11, 2005)

Hi Scott, this is pretty good, I went to 3 rivers park yesterday, lots of structure there, I had my gear in the trunk but was thinking it is useless to even try. Also, lots of structure means lots of lost baits, what do you wish with in such places? $5 rapala would be a waste I think.


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## Mushijobah (May 4, 2004)

Heres the real challenge...Show us a REAL (post December 21st) winter bass....AHH... That will really get me riled up for some smallies!


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## RiverRat (Apr 5, 2004)

Mush, not sure of your challenge as ive CAUGHT many SM bass in ALL 12 months of the year...with winter being my best time for BIG smallies.

So the snow on the ground, the no leaves on the trees, snow on trees and very yellow/orangish winter color of those smallies dont tell you anything about what time of the year it is then huh?

Look, i KNOW i can catch them when its very cool outside, so i dont need to rile myself up..im confident in my fishing abilitys..maybe YOU should go out and catch one to rile your SELF up...lol. 

Scott


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## itsbrad (Jun 13, 2005)

Here is a Jan bass.










Wasnt a monster but hey a fish is a fish and this was my first of 2006.


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## RiverRat (Apr 5, 2004)

Good show Brad, any Bass during the winter is good no matter how big it is.

With these last few weeks being very warm for this time of the year, we have caught a good many LM bass...i think we have around 14-16 so far for 2006...funny thing is, we were after SM bass..geez!

Scott


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## Mushijobah (May 4, 2004)

I do not like fishing slow for a fish that are fun because of their aggressive hits on fast baits and jumps in the summer. Kind of pointless. I have caught them in the ohio river in february and they fight like little wussys! Hybrid stripers are the way to go this time of year!


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