Late Winter Swimbaiting

[CrankinBass]

I don't know how this will apply to West coast anglers, but here in the South East its been colder than average. I am having some problems locating the big girls. Any tips???

[High Power Swimbaits]

You are in Dublin. It's spring there already. Find the warmest water in the lake and fish around steep structure and dropoffs going into deeper water. This could be all the way in the back of a creek or on the main lake whichever is warmest depending on the weather. On warming trends more active fish will suspend more often near the warmer surface water in the shallows or near the surface. During cooling trends fish for the fish closer to the bottom in deeper more stable water. Thats's just the general rule of thumb I use to look for fish this time of year.

[CrankinBass]

You are in Dublin. It's spring there already. Find the warmest water in the lake and fish around steep structure and dropoffs going into deeper water. This could be all the way in the back of a creek or on the main lake whichever is warmest depending on the weather. On warming trends more active fish will suspend more often near the warmer surface water in the shallows or near the surface. During cooling trends fish for the fish closer to the bottom in deeper more stable water. Thats's just the general rule of thumb I use to look for fish this time of year.

 

 

Thanks man!!! Are you still fishing with your High Power Swimbaits? I hear that hard bait style swimbaits don't fair to well in the Winter time. What do you think about that?

 

 

 

Adrian

[Bassindon69]

I live west coast but when I fished in Arkansas in Jan (snow on the ground ) I hit swimbait fish there too, the same way I hit them here in winter. I fish where I catch em.

[High Power Swimbaits]

You can't group all hard baits together no more than you can group all soft baits together for winter. There are general rules you can apply ( ex.paddletails for warm water and wedgetails for winter) to help you choose but then somebody will come and break the rules or build something outside the box that doesn't fit in with anything else you will try to group it with. Instead ask yourself how slow does it swim, how natural does it move, does it swim like a snake or swim more like a fish? is the action real wide or is it tight? What does it do when it stops swimming? Does it straighten back out like a fish would or coil up like a snake or even fall on it's side and sink like a rock? How fast does it sink? Can you get cold water reaction strikes from it like ripping a lipless crank/jerkbait or will it get strikes in winter because it moves so slow and natural?

I have used the HPH in the past in winter and caught fish down to 42 degree water letting it sink down to suspended fish then moving it slow with jerkbait like twitches. But this is a prototype bait I filmed today to show a buddy who is helping me with feedback on the final adjustments on the bait. It is an even better example of a hardbait that works great in winter because of it's extremely tight swimming motion, speeds it swims, way it sinks, etc. It almost moves more like a plastic bait. I have this same bait made with another swimming motion that worked great in the summer and early fall but this one is going to be better for winter in most cases.

[High Power Swimbaits]

Sebile fished as slow as it would swim over fish suspended in a ditch.

[High Power Swimbaits]

10 pounder caught on a Mattlures bluegill near the bottom in 15 feet of water. He had just caught a nine pounder on jig a few casts earlier. So there is a sebile hardbait fish and a Mattlures paddletail bait fish that both caught big fish in Feb. Both baits will swim pretty slow without alot of extra movement and the Mattlures bait will sit upright on the bottom and you don't even have to move it.