Fishing for bass within the winter will be irritating.
With water temperatures dipping into the 40s throughout these southern ponds, lakes, and rivers that get pleasure from open water all through the winter, it may be troublesome to entice largemouth bass right into a strike.
That is very true for financial institution and shore anglers, who cannot transfer to the deep holes that the thermocline inversion has stored hotter, making a haven for chilly bass.
However there are some things you are able to do to tilt the percentages in your favor, and one of the crucial efficient is to rethink the Texas rig.
Texas Rig Fundamentals
The Texas rig is definitely the most typical soft-plastic selection for bass anglers, and its compact form delivers pin-point accuracy whether or not you are pitching and flipping, casting into holes in floating vegetation, or punching grass mats.
And it is honest to say that the Texas rig’s status is nicely earned: it really works nicely with all kinds of sentimental plastics, from magnum-sized worms and lizards, to craws and different creature baits, to even tubes, paddle tails, and flukes. I’ve thropwn nearly each osft plastic you may consider Texas rigged, and with the proper selection, I’ve by no means been dissatisfied.
A Texas rig is nothing extra sophisticated than an EWG hook, a bullet sinker, and a tender plastic trailer.
It may be assembled in seconds, and baits will be swapped simply as rapidly.
Winter Texas Rigs
Within the late spring, all through the summer time, and into the early fall, you will discover my throwing huge tender plastics more often than not, and I like to make use of 1/4 to three/8-ounce bullet weights and usually a 2/0 EWG hole hook. In conjuction with good braid like Sufix 832, that offers me exact casts, as a lot distance as I can presumably use, and loads of choices for shade, sample, and motion.
However in winter, when the bass are sluggish and disinclined to strike, I’ve had significantly better luck downsizing, and I’ve discovered that “finesse” Texas rigs are cash on cold-water bass.
Downsize your Texas rigs
For my winter bass fishing, I begin with a 1/8-ounce bullet sinker and a 1/0 EWG hook.
I am searching for a trailer within the neighborhood of three to 4 inches, typically the identical sorts of choices I might think about for a Damiki rig or a Ned rig.
I’ve had good luck with craw patterns like NetBait’s Paca Slim 3.5-inch and Strike King’s Rage Tail Craw, and flukes like Zoom’s Tremendous Salt Plus actually strut their stuff behind a light-weight jig head.
Choose your sample
Patterns with extra fluttering appendages will usually fall extra slowly than extra hydrodynamic designs.
In plain English, flukes fall sooner than craws, and lizards fall sooner than brush hogs. I am positive you get the thought.
If the bass are on or close to the underside, I might favor a sample that helps me get down rapidly whereas nonetheless fluttering because it falls. But when they’re suspended within the water column, I would like my tender plastic to gradual my descent as a lot as doable, maintaining me within the “stike zone” longer.
And as is awlays the case, stained or muddy water calls for brighter colours, and pearl or charteuse are frequent decisions. In gin-clear water, I’m going for muted, pure hues like greens, brown, and blues, typically with a shiny fleck to catch the sunshine and glint, drawing further consideration.
Decelerate
When the bass are feeling the complete lethargy of chilly water, you will want to provide them loads of time to gear-up for a strike.
If you happen to suppose you is perhaps shifting to quick, you most likely are and it is important that you just gradual method down.
My favourite winter-time approach is to forged my Texas rig into a possible spot, say, on the far aspect of a channel or gap, and creep my Texas rig in and throughout that spot.
I take advantage of a side-arm drag, watching my rod tip for tender strikes and shifting it simply an inch or two at a time. I decide up my slack to maintain a good line all through, and with good braided line and a medium-power rod, don’t have any hassle detecting each stick, rock, hump, and trough as I’m going.
I am going to generally change to a really gradual retrieve, shifting the crank simply inches ahead earlier than stopping.
Gradual and regular pays off, and the primary time you are feeling the bump, bump, bump of a bass fairly than the tender slide of your Texas-rigged tender plastic slipping over a log, you will know you have obtained it proper.
Suspended bass
“Hotter” water will generally discover the bass suspended within the water column fairly than holding tight to the underside, particularly if there is a warmth sink like a piling, a giant chunk of concrete, or some rocks warming within the solar close by.
And once I know the bass are holding mid-column, I am going to think about mocing to a 1/10-ounce bullet sinker, and even dropping the burden completely to throw my tender plastic on only a 1/0 EWG hook.
Both of those decisions goes to have an effect on casting distance, and if that is probably not a difficulty, a weightless craw or fluke can actually hammer winter basss because it flutters and glides down by means of a college.
As an example, yesterday, I discovered a drop off that held suspended, torpid bass. The water temps have been within the 40s, and so they weren’t inclined to strike. However by working my unweighted fluke as much as the floor and letting it flutter again down by means of them, I obtained some fish all for what I used to be throwing.
Experiment
Particularly once I’m fishing unfamiliar waters, I wish to change up weights and trailers till I discover a combo that falls like I would like it to and garners loads of consideration as I work it.
It is not a foul thought to experiment systematically, working heavier to lighter in your weight, altering sizes and patterns, and dealing a number of doubtless colours to search out what works for the situations that day.
Ultimate Ideas
Texas rigs are versatile, and one in all their many strengths is which you could downsize them for winter bass fishing, utilizing them very like you’ll a jig or Damiki rig.
And with somewhat know-how and time on the water, you may dial-in a lethal Texas rig to your favourite bass waters, supplying you with much more time on the water in chilly climate.
Do you’ve gotten any ideas so as to add or questions you would like answered?
In that case, please go away a remark beneath!
