December 21, 2018 by Cody Kelley
My last few articles dug into the fall feeding frenzy that takes place in the shallows. Once the water begins to go from cool to cold, we see the bass make yet another move: to deep areas with low flow and plenty of bait.
If you remember back to previous articles, we talked about how the water temperature can affect the activity level of bass. When the water gets cold, bass often move to areas that don’t require a lot of energy to feed and live. So they avoid current and move to deeper water, which usually stays at a more constant temperature and isn’t as affected by winter cold fronts as the top layer of water. Sometimes the top layer of water can drop 10 degrees overnight.
Here are some examples of where to look.
Creek channels
During the fall feed we focused on fishing the flats within creeks. Now that the water has become even colder, the fish will begin making their way to deeper water, and the routes they use most often are creek channels and ditches. Think of these ditches/channels out of the creeks as “bass highways.” Anglers just have to figure out where along the routes the bass will stop – usually on turn, bends or stump rows along the edges of the channels.
Points
One of my favorite places to find wintertime bass is a long, sloping point. On a map, follow a creek channel out into the main lake. Often there will be a long point coming off the bank where the channel comes in. I like to start shallow and fish my way all the way out to the deepest part of the point. Sometimes this might be 40 to 50 feet deep.
Bluff walls
A bluff wall (or cliff wall, depending on where you’re fishing) can be considered a do-all place to find fish. Bluffs tend to hold bass almost all year, but winter is a great time to find bass on bluffs because a bluff indicates a channel that runs all the way up against the bank. As a general rule, you almost always want to fish the steeper banks in the winter.
Follow these tips on understanding where bass hide in the cold winter months
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Tags: winter -deep-fishing -largemouth -baitfish fishing-tips-advanced cody-kelley
