Having waited what seemed like an eternity for my Cotton Cordell C.C. Spoon to find bottom and noting the vertical nature of the surrounding terrain, I peeked curiously at the graph screen.
"100," the digital numbers clearly said, but I wasn’t quite convinced.
"Are we really fishing 100 feet deep?" I asked my friend, a veteran mountain lake angler.
"Yep," he said with a grin that suggested he had heard that question many times. "That’s how deep the walleyes are, so that’s how deep we're fishing."
It didn’t take long before his point was proven as the first walleye of the morning was swung into the boat. And then the second. And then the third… We moved only a few times all day. Each spot was within a few feet of the same depth, and each was at the end of a point that intersected the main river channel.
The depth was an oddity. I had never dropped a lure 100 feet. However, the technique we were using is a winter classic. We were jigging Sonars and C.C. Spoons among a congregation of baitfish and gamefish and finding steady action.
Walleyes were the name of the game that day, but I’ve done the same thing with bass, crappie and saugers on other winter days. There’s no better way to capitalize on the dense schools of fish that tend to form when water temperatures hit rock bottom during the winter.
Winter actually produces some of the most predictable fishing of the year on reservoirs that don’t freeze. The shad form big balls, usually congregating in deep holes along creek or river channels, and fish of every variety show up for the buffet.
Prime areas are hard bends in the lower ends of creeks and confluences of creek and river channels. If you can find a dense school of baitfish near the bottom, there’s no need to mark specific gamefish. Trust they are among the baitfish.
The fish are generally deep – although not 100 feet deep in most lakes! – so you can hold the boat directly over them and drop a bait in their faces. A jigging lure like a Sonar or C.C. Spoon stays in the strike zone constantly, and eventually will coax winter-slowed fish to nab what looks like an easy meal.
Drop your lure among them and work it slowly, lifting it off the bottom with your rod tip and letting it wobble back down. Watch the line closely on the drop. That’s when almost all fish will hit.
C.C. Spoons wobble widely, while Sonars offer a much tighter wiggle. Let the fish decide. Sonars also can be cast and worked slowly down a slope with hops and drops, while C.C. Spoons lend themselves best to a strict vertical jigging approach.
Either offering resembles a winter-slowed or dying baitfish with its wobble and metallic flash. If you can find the fish, you typically can catch them, and that will warm up a bitter winter day!
See you on the water!
Jeff Samsel