Winter/southern reservoir strategies

[Rich Stern]

I'm taking a couple of friends out on Hartwell tomorrow. Along with the rest of the nation, we had a really bad cold snap over the last couple of weeks, and then rain and a warming trend in the last few days. Supposed to be in the mid 50's tomorrow. I expect the surface water temp to be in the mid to upper 40s. Hartwell is a typical, large southern reservoir. Depths available within reasonable running distance will be up to 80', with lots of sticks, blowdowns, rip rap, etc. up the creeks.



Looking for suggestions on cold water largemouth strategies.

 

[Rob LaMoy]

Dynamite! And then give your friends some beer so they don't mind all the noise. Wish I could help more Rich, but "cold" is a relative term. For your fish 40 might have them not moving. Up here the fish would really start biting and get nuts as it hit 50. Plus resevoirs fish different than natural lakes.

 

[Kraig Clement]

I would fish some sort of crank bait... suspending diver and fish it slooooooooooowww.crank it down then 1/2 turn stop..1/2 turn stop.....

second choice would be a jig.

 

[Rob LaMoy]

Good point, no matter where you are Rich, I would venture to say that when fish are lethargic, it's hard to beat a jig or dead sticking a jerkbait.

 

[James D.]

in the heat of the afternoon, especially after a warming trend, try slow rolling a 1/2oz spinnerbait with 1 large #5 colorado blade in shallow water. i like white ones year round. if ya can, find a creek channel where maybe a shallow flat brings warmer wind blown water in. a couple weeks ago, in the warm of the day, i found a real good one in 2' of water. the jig pattern i haven't figured out yet but i'm working on it. i was talkin to some guys at academy this evening and they were headed to reyburn. they were buying a lot of finesse drop shot stuff as they said they do real good off ledges, humps in 35' of water this time of year. i guess slow roll a spinner bait shallow in the afternoon and finesse fish real deep. i'm going to try to flip some jigs around creek channel banks and see what happens as i bought some big chunk trailors and some scissors for the boat to trim my jigs correctly like rob told me. i expect the water here to be in the low 40's after the cold snap last week and it is still getting real cold at night. i think the afternoon bite near shallow water will be a good bite.

jd

 

[Dan J.]

Try jigging a white/chrome spoon (3/4-1oz) early AM in the main river bends on the Tugaloo at about 40ish feet early. (T-11, T-13, T-22, T-31, T-33, and the mouth of Beaver Dam Creek all have good wood bottoms, some standing) As the sun warms up try a #5 split shot on the nose of a white Super Fluke Jr. with a 1/0 Mustad light wire hook. Give the bait plenty of time to settle to the bottom fishing the same locations, a little shallower (20-30ft.), later in the morning (10:30-1:00ish) working it with subtle twitches, almost worming it. You might want to check the back of Paynes, Gum Log, and especially Eastanolle, in the afternoons moderately cranking a chart./pearl #7 Shad Rap, or Bomber Deep Flat "A" firetiger. The water is holding a decent stain and will warm greatly in the PM. Slow rolling a similar 1/2oz spbt. should achieve similar results. Keep a 1/2oz chrome/blue trap handy for boils or surface activity, the Hybrids usually wake up first in the creek backs. Try trolling an umbrella in the same creeks mentioned for some stripes and hybrids. The past two weekends have produced an enormous shad kill of threadfins and some gizzards so you'll be competing against alot of dying fish food. Downlining and drifting small (3") minnows might add some action, mimmicking the threads. Hope this helps. Good Luck!

 

[Staci Matheis]

Dan J -



What causes the kill of shad and threadfins?



I was over at Carlyle Friday afternoon and stopped by the spillway of the damn - dead and dying fish all over the banks..... The gulls were loving it - but it certainly didn't help me catch anything in the 1/2 hour I took of to throw a few baits.



me!

 

[Dan J.]

Scott - Most of a shad's (Threadfin and Gizzard) diet and refuge is located in shallower water. This causes them to get caught in cold snaps before safer temps are found, killing off a good percentage. It's Nature's way of culling the herd, feeding the birds, adding nutrients to the water, etc...It makes for a very difficult time with artificials, unless targeting a species in an area away from the kill, usually much deeper. If nice weather follows a kill, the fish will move up and binge on the easy "croakers". Stained water can help, allowing a little confusion to get an artificial some attention. So I've been told and believe.

 

[Rich Stern]

Dan, I didn't read your post until today, but you were right about where the fish were. Nothing shallower than 30 to 40 feet, and a lot of fish hanging near the bottom of main river points, often near 60 feet. Unfortunately, it was colder than expected, with stronger wind. We didn't have the patience to stick it out for the deep jigging.



Lots of dead shad floating around in the creeks.

 

[Travis Smith]

Id slow roll a Ledge Buster in about 20 ft of water off main lake points and look for suspended fish

 

[Staci Matheis]

Dan -



It was mid-50's yesterday, so I ended up going out to the spillway below Carlyle. It was almost as elbow to elbow down there as the openning day of trout season at the parks!



The floodgates were closed and the water in the spillway couldn't have been more than about 5' deep. Probably 6' to 8' below the normal water markings on the concrete.



I fished from about 11 am until 6 pm and didn't catch a thing..... Not even a dink. Tried everything from spinnerbaits to tubes to real nightcrawlers.



There were a few people catching fish on small crapie jigs. Kept making me wonder what I was doing wrong. Then I realized that they were snagging the fish rather than catching. Now I know why Michigan outlaws drop shotting. These people had heavy rods/line with about 1 ounce of weight at the end and two or three jigs tied a little further up. They were snagging some pretty large fish this way - I saw several cats and carp that were in the 20# range and buffalo around 10#. All that I saw snagged were released.



All in all, it was a beautiful day and great to just be outside!



me!