It is not an exciting bit of information, but it is important to realize that fish activity slows down a lot in winter. Fish are cold blooded. As a result, their movement and metabolic activity adjusts with the temperature range in which they can live.
Depending upon what freshwater species you seek, and where and how you are fishing, this can mean still fishing bait or slowly fishing lures. Let’s look at lures for such as for smallmouth and largemouth bass, pike, musky, panfish, crappie, walleye and the like.
All these fish are active lure takers, but in winter that activity slows. As a general rule, biologists believe that with each ten degree drop in Centigrade temperature, a fish’s metabolism is cut in half. It is a general rule subject to variations, but is a good basic rule for winter fishing.
That means that a fish that scarfs down one minnow per week in summer might eat only one minnow every two or three weeks in the colder waters of winter.
And if fishing lures, this means that you need a lure that you can move as little as possible to keep it in the strike zone while the lure retains some action and movement. One winter when fishing a river for largemouth, I found that by slowing down a bottom-fished spinnerbait, fishing could be as fast as spring spawning bed fishing.
The secret with that fishing was two-fold after realizing that bass movement hit the bottom along with the thermometer reading. The first was the choice of the best lure, which in this case was a spinnerbait tipped with a pork frog.
Spinnerbaits have everything going for them in winter fishing. They have a blade or two for flash to attract fish.
They also have a skirt to wiggle and wobble, with the slightest movement in a current or caused by the angler.
The next important factor is fishing slowly. The weight of the body gets a spinnerbait down deep with heavy spinnerbaits best in flowing water to keep them down where the fish hide in the winter.
With a current, the blades will slowly revolve and dance while the lure barely moves. The skirt adds to this and in my fishing for bass, I add some pork for the fish to mouth. Pork is equally important for smaller spinnerbaits or hair jigs used in river bank eddies for smallmoth.
Couple either of these rigs with braided line for maximum sensitivity on your spinning or casting outfit and you have a super system for winter fishing. With flashy blades, a wiggly skirt and some bait or pork tipping the hook, a spinnerbait is an ideal lure for working throughout the harshest climate of winter.
The ability to keep that spinnerbait on the bottom, move it only inches at a time for action and to wait for that slowed metabolism bass to be aware of it, find it and hit it is thrill to warm the cockles of your fisherman’s heart.
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