02-04-2013, 11:14 PM
Now is my favorite time of year for fishing except for fall I guess. Boat traffic is minimal (couple big cruisers out yesterday) but they are not like wakeboard rigs) and all the drunken boaters are staying home and not breaking down on the ramps. More than once I have seen dual empty 24 packs come off a rig at the dock when passengers might be 4 to 6 people. That is like massive Canadian beer loads!
Smallies start spawning around 55° according to what I've read. My feeling is we are right on the front edge of that. Testing my hypothesis towards end of the week if weather holds.
What is baffling is being unable to locate them in pre spawning staging areas...even fishing deeper down to 50 ft. Seen some stripers and carp on the graph but no bass. Carp were on the surface yesterday evening
I noticed the bass coming shallower at dusk. Maybe they are on a crawdad bite? But crawdads will burrow or go deep in winter...so I don't know. Missing a part of the puzzle. Need to catch a smallie and give him a boat ride so he regurgitates
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Smallies start spawning around 55° according to what I've read. My feeling is we are right on the front edge of that. Testing my hypothesis towards end of the week if weather holds.
What is baffling is being unable to locate them in pre spawning staging areas...even fishing deeper down to 50 ft. Seen some stripers and carp on the graph but no bass. Carp were on the surface yesterday evening
I noticed the bass coming shallower at dusk. Maybe they are on a crawdad bite? But crawdads will burrow or go deep in winter...so I don't know. Missing a part of the puzzle. Need to catch a smallie and give him a boat ride so he regurgitates
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