This past weekend, I took my favorite fishing partner (my wife) for an afternoon's session. I really wanted to put her on some fish since she can't tolerate cold weather and I knew it might well be her last outing with me for a few months. I picked a spot that does well for us in warmer weather but that I'd not tried in the cool. I made up groundbait and had hopes of getting some fish in the swim active and in a mood to bite. Well, my record as a very bad baiter is still intact. 3 hours and we had 2 small fish to show for our efforts. I gave up on that idea, raised the anchors, lowered the trolling motor, and off we went in search of hungry fish.

Since I was determined to put her on fish, I did not do my usual of fishing along with lures while she fished her preferred method of lobworm under a float. I put out a rod with a lob and concentrated on keeping a decent distance from shore and keeping my rig within a foot or two of the ever-changing bottom depth.

The end result was that she caught lots of fish, I caught no fish, and I had tons of time to simply sit and think and that gave me the idea for posting this thread.

Forum topics often do not proceed as their originator hopes and this one may be among them. What I hope to do is put together a collection of tips, tactics, etc. that have a chance of being effective for catching fish in cool-to-cold weather.

We've had a number of isolated topics recently asking for help or ideas so I think it would be nice if we could gather how-to ideas in one place. Those of us who fish all year long can learn from each other and those who prefer milder weather will have something to read while they wait for Spring.

I'm certain that some of the 'regulars' will offer ideas since there are some of us who love to post here. But I also know we have members who rarely (or never) post and I'd love to see them weigh in with questions, answers, or their favored cold water tactics.

Hopefully we'll get some general ideas, some species specific ideas, and still others dealing with how to approach certain types of waters.

If none of this happens ... well I've had topics go KLUNK before.

So if you aren't bored to tears yet, I'll post a bit about patterning fish and the see how things proceed from there.

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Patterning fish

If you are not restricted to a peg or mobility limited, this is a great time of year to move around some. Not many anglers so you likely won't be bothering anyone and at worst, moving helps keep you a little warmer.

Patterning is something good US pred anglers do as a matter of routine. It is based on the fact that on a given day (or hour) on any lake/river there will be active fish who are hungry and in search of a meal, suspended fish who won't bite if a bait is dangled in front of their nose, and a group of fish that aren't really looking for a feed but will eat if an easy opportunity presents itself. Spring/summer/early fall will usually see a higher percentage of fish in active mode but there are always some.

For reasons that I cannot really understand, it seems that active fish of a given species will tend to like the same sorts of places. If you catch a couple of fish near overhanging branches you can probably do well by trying all the overhanging branches around the lake. Catch one or two over gravel beds and those would be good places to try.

While you are trying all the overhanging branches, if you find that you get fish when there is deep water under the branches but you get nothing when it is shallow, you have further refined your pattern. Gravel in 5 feet of water produces but gravel in 1 foot or 10 feet does not and you have further refined your pattern.

A particular pattern may hold for only an hour or two or it may hold for days. Once you find the fish you should concentrate on those sorts of places until it becomes obvious that the fish have changed their minds and then it's time to start looking again. If there are limited numbers of places on your water that are similar enough to be worth a try, then it may be time to pick one or two that produced best and put out some bait since if there were active fish there, there are probably also some of the 'tweenies' that you can coax into a more active feeding mode.

Back to my days outing with Jan - after an hour of trying near the shore with a gradual slope to maybe 8 foot depths and only a couple of bites, we moved to a section with deeper water just off shore. Well happy days, she started getting bites more frequently and we both paid very close attention to conditions where the bites happened. It finally turned out that the active fish were holding in 2-4 feet of water as long as there was a log under them and the water was at least 10 feet deep.

We concentrated on those spots until dark and she had a banner day with lots of fish caught and released. Most were bluegill but as a bonus, she caught a perch that was at least 5 times larger than any we had ever seen in that lake. Not large by UK standards but when most of the perch you get are 2-4 ounce fish, a 1 lb 5 oz fish is a monster.

The best thing we had to show for the first few hours at anchor and tossing out bait was a visit from this fine fella who obviously knew we couldn't move quickly and were no threat to him.



We did have some other anglers in the area and I'm guessing these two were trying to locate crappie (a fish you don't have) at 10-20 feet with jigs. Crappie are good eating but poor sport so I don't ever target them but lots of folks do and with this tactic they probably picked up an occasional bonus largemouth bass for a little excitement.



This is typical of the places we eventually found fish where a blown down tree near the water placed a nice log in the water.



And here is the 'specimen' perch Jan caught.

A lot to take in there Newt, it'll get a re-read later. But what struck me was your perch, loads of stripes!

By the way, the term 'fall' is an ancient Scots term. Basically it refers to that critical time, shortly after closing time. In reality the 'Fall' takes place seconds after being kicked out of a hot, stuffy pub when folk hit the cold air.

[ 09. December 2004, 08:28 PM: Message edited by: Peter Waller ]