Cold Water Bass Fishing

In Kentucky, the winter can make it tough for fishing for bass. Both large mouth and small mouth bass move deep in the winter. Also their metabolism has slowed down to where they choose their prey by a good meal that takes the least amount of energy to catch and eat. When they do find and eat their prey say a shad or a crawdad, it takes almost three times longer for them to digest the prey then in the summer, so they eat less and stay close to prey. Fish points that drop off in deep cover. Bass are found as deep as 60 ft deep and follow the bait fish.

From my fishing experences, I prefure to fish swift moving water in the winter like creeks and rivers. When farm ponds are frozen, water with current tends to keep from freezing due the the water moving. Current also plays a big role in when fish feed and where they position their self in the current rather than on the bank. I fish crank baits(hard baits that dive 2'-10ft and look like a minnow), jigs that inmate crawdads, and tubes that inmate dying bait fish. I fish all these baits slow and the hits are half as aggressive as the other seasons. Regardless of the hit these fish still fight and the small mouth seem to fight just as hard in the winter as in the other three seasons. I fish Elkhorn Creek, Kentucky River, and Cumberland River(above Lake Cumberland). I found fish schooled together very tightly. At Elkhorn, I caught five fish within a six foot area. Three large mouth and two small mouth and all in the 12"-16" range. This was in the middle of December and the high temp. for the day was 38 degrees. Try some of these bait and techniques when you get cabin fever and hopefully you will have some luck just like I did.