everythingthatswims

And not even a baitrunner on it

Better head a little further south to Watauga if you want some walleyes! And if you're in NOVA, I'd just go to Deep Creek unless you're looking for a change of scenery. Deep Creek is fullll of them!

DUDE. Drive to Bemidji Minnesota and fish all the little lakes around there (besides Bemidji, it's run by musky and pike). I was up there for a college championship, and all of the college guys have stories about the various lakes in that area and how incredible the fishing was. I'm sure there are a lot of places in Minnesota like that too. Where we were, you could fish a different lake every 2 hours for a week and never run out of water. The bass fishing is unbelievable. Water would be 8' vis and you could flip a 1/2oz texas rig with a beaver on straight braid to a fish that is 5' from the boat and it would bite. They are fat, aggressive, and dumb as a box of rocks. Smallmouth and largemouth all over that area, I would highly recommend it. The fishing pressure there is almost exclusively for walleye, a lot of people don't even know bass live there.

Dustin Connell says it so I say it

Fish will definitely move up almost like pre spawn with winter weather like that. Still have to fish slow, and it won't be any off the charts fishing, but it is doable. I recommend smaller bodies of water. My buddy in northern WV caught a bass this weekend in 3FOW on a jig. Water was 42/43 degrees in the small lake he was fishing. Dirty water is your friend, fish afternoons of sunny days, that stuff warms up. As far as river fishing goes, they can get super bunched up, but finding them is challenging. Once you do find a wintering area, it should be the same year after year.

I have never used one. My friend did say they skip like a dream, so maybe there would be a time and place for that. Fish get a lot more pressure these days and it continues to increase with the popularity of angling and the influence of social media on angling. Fishing is "cool" now. With that being said, sometimes dumb stuff can work, because it is something that the bass haven't seen. I still don't plan on trying a knuckle bait.

It does not. It's a wintering area. I'm pretty sure bass from other reaches of the river migrate to this place when it gets cold, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

Only 4-5 months til ice-out! Not sure how you do it.

Not many places you can do this, but I went to a specific lake with the intention of trying. Pulled it off!

I got to fish South Holston Lake in Tennesee on Friday, I have family nearby and was in town for our Christmas celebration (boat in tow, obviously ). Cloudy and rainy, but those conditions have been good to me at that place historically. As with the stellar largemouth fishing two days before, I had no clue what was in store for my brother and I that day... We started off catching a couple fish on a 2.8 keitech on points, that stupid little bait knocks their lights out in east Tennesee, because they feed on tiny alewives a lot. I wanted them to eat a jerkbait but I couldn't get them to, and after fishing a handful of points, my brother in the back of the boat had proved that the 2.8 keitech was the way to go. We headed down the lake and after rounding a corner, I looked ahead and saw what we refer to as a "beehive" on the Chesapeake Bay, birds diving in such a frenzy that the constant movement looks like a swarm of bees! Upon closer inspection, we could see smallmouth coming out of the water underneath them. We idled to about 100 yards and then closed the distance on the trolling motor (not many people do this unfortunately!) I lobbed an A-rig out off the end of the point, but fish started blowing up, so I set the rod down and cast another bait. I didn't get one, but my brother hooked a good smallmouth on a LC Staysee. I went to pick up my A-rig rod and it had snagged in something 50 feet down. During my lure retriever antics, my brother boated 3 smallmouth in 3 casts on the Staysee, one of those casts he had a double but lost one of them. As quickly as it began, it was over, and we began fan casting on the point to no avail. Fish were sporadically breaking, and I actually got one to eat a pencil popper in 50 degree water, unfortunately it came unbuttoned. We soon saw another beehive of birds on a different point, and headed over to see if it was more smallmouth. It was, and we doubled up on deep diving jerkbaits on our first casts! We caught a couple more after that, but there were a lot of fish showing themselves compared to the bites we were getting, time for a bait change. I fished a 3.3" keitech on an underspin, but no dice. My first cast with the ol' east Tennesee 2.8 keitech proved that it would be the bait of the day, and we began doubling up on every cast after that, it was insane! Mother nature was displaying so much visible carnage on this point, that I was waiting for David Attenborough to start narrating. Birds were attacking the alewives from the air, and smallmouth had them pinned to the surface! The waves of activity came and went, but for the most part, we sat on this point all day, landing at least 50 smallmouth, it was happening far too fast to keep track. Because it poured rain for the first half of the day, we somehow had the lake to ourselves, and no one ever saw any of the birds or breaking fish, it was beautiful! Towards the end of the day, we started catching some of them on a spybait, which is a bait I have very little experience with, so it was good to do some learning! The spybait ended up producing 3 of our best 5 fish for the day, so there was definitely "something to it". East Tennesee is a wonderful place, I am jealous of those who are lucky enough to call it home! A little over 17lbs for a best 5. Broke my biggest 5 LMB and Biggest 5 SMB during a 3 day period!

In my last post, I said I was rigging up a jig and some 20lb fluoro to head back to the cold mud, with bigger fish in mind. I never could have predicted the day that I ended up having! I did have a little feeling though, because three or four years ago I fished the same conditions in the same place and caught two big fish, and my best 5 were probably in the 18-20lb range. After discovering active fish on Christmas day from the bank, my little brother and I headed back to the river with our kayaks, so we could access the fish a little better. After the bite we experienced, I think water must have been at least mid 40s, but we didn't have a thermometer, so I will never know. I do know they would only eat a bottom bait, and even though the bite was good, you still had to be extremely methodical about your retrieve (if you can even call it that). My first fish of the day was a 6.04lb gorgeous winter largemouth, I knew I was going to have a shot at one over 5, so I was stoked to get it as my first bite! It was in an eddy that produced one of the big fish I caught years ago under the same conditions, I love having a home field advantage. I spend a lot of time on this river so I know where big fish usually like to hang, and where all the little depth changes, rock piles, etc are. That knowledge definitely came in handy since I had to fish so slowly. The bite was pretty consistent, we fished wood cover close to the bank, and many of the fish were actually sitting on the upstream side of the wood, which is an awesome indicator of their activity level, and surprising for cold, muddy water. Most of the bites we were getting were in the 1.5-2.5lb range, nothing big after the first one. Home field advantage came in handy again, there was a log with some brush pushed up on it that was a few feet from where I caught a 7lber on a wiggle wart in March, and historically, that small 50'x50' area holds big fish. On my first flip, I hooked a fish in the 4lb range and lost it at the kayak, I was bummed! On my next flip to the same piece of wood, I caught a 2.5lber. After releasing that fish, on my next flip, again to the same piece of wood, I buttoned up a good one. That fish ended up weighing 5.22, and yet another big fish from that little sweet spot! I continued fishing the area catching small fish, but never anything over 2.5lbs. My little brother hit a stretch of bank and lost two big fish, one of them he said was 5lbs or so that he lost boatside. He went back to the same tree 30 minutes later, and caught a 4.9! Clearly, the big fish were bunched up. After about an hour, I headed back to the tree where I lost the 4 and caught the 5. I made many pitches to the piece of cover, and finally locked up on a fish. This one was a 6.15, I couldn't believe it! I was keeping track of my best 5, and was bummed that I lost the 4lber boatside, because it was my fault for rushing it. I knew I had the opportunity to catch a really impressive bag of fish, so I stayed after it, going back through water I had fished throughout the day. Any spot that produced fish earlier in the day had reloaded, so I just made a milk run fishing the good stuff. I popped a 4.21 and a 3.74 in about a 5 minute flurry of bites, once again the bigger fish were grouped up! Those two fish brought my best 5 to a whopping 25.36lbs (A Big Dumb Bag), my best 5 fish limit ever by far, and I did it from a kayak in late December! It is a beautiful thing when preparation meets opportunity. I have been diligently fishing that place in my kayak for at least 6 years, and had only broken the 15lb mark a handful of times, nothing close to what I did this time around! For anyone wondering, I was fishing a 3/8oz black and blue Molix Kento Jig, with a 3" and 4" chigger craw on the back. 20lb red label fluorocarbon on a 7'8" Heavy Doomsday "47" flippin' stick. 6.04lbs, also you can see my life jacket sitting on my kayak behind me from where I had taken it off after beaching the kayak for pictures. 6.15 5.22

It is a bit of a Christmas tradition to head to the nearby river after we finish up with lunch and gifts at my grandparent's house. My younger brother and I only had one rod each, and a handful of baits, with a short bank fishing trip in mind. Water is high and muddy, as it has been for most of this year. Not ideal conditions for fishing considering the water temps in the low 40s. Since I have grown up fishing this river, I pretty much know where the bass live, and what they do depending on the conditions. This is a key for cold, muddy water, because even if I'm not getting bit, I know I'm probably dropping it on their heads, so it's easier to slow down and be patient. Water had less than a foot of visibility, but was clearly fishable. I fished a black and blue jig for a while, but they weren't having it. My brother caught one small fish on a shakey head, and missed a couple other fish. His bites were coming in eddies with wood and brush, right up against the bank. It is strange to fish pretty much straight down in front of you, but those river bass want to get out of the current when it's cold and muddy. All of our bites today were in less than 3' of water, some as shallow as 1'. I switched to a shakey head, alternating between a 5" black single tail grub, and a 3" black and blue chigger craw. I don't think it mattered what bait you used, as long as you fished it slow and gave it enough movement for them to locate it in the dirty water. We ended up landing 13 bass up to 2.5lbs in around 2 hours, and my brother lost one that was over 5 while he was trying to lip it. The fish were surprisingly aggressive given the conditions, and we are planning to take the kayaks out tomorrow and further exploit the bite we stumbled upon! Even though I didn't get bit on it today, I know that ol jig will work. I'll be suiting up with some 20lb fluorocarbon and a stout rod to try and yank a big girl out of a tree tomorrow! Note that there is no hook-up preventer (some call it a screw lock) on the shakey head.....

Giants! Looks like they came out of some nutrient rich black water, I could be wrong on that though.

Bass fishermen are also some of the best at judging wave height

I use the Z Man weedless shroom heads

Most of the lakes in WV are set up with a ton of winter habitat unfortunately, so it is a challenge to find them in many places. I like going to small lakes where all you have to do is look at a contour map and go get them!

Once water temperatures dip to 40 degrees and below, bass become extremely challenging to locate, since they move so slowly. Catching them is honestly the easiest part this time of year, the tough part is making yourself fish slow enough so that when you do find some, they will bite. I went out on a local lake with 2 friends on Sunday, air temps were in the 30s, and water was 38-39 degrees. We know of a few brush piles (we made two of them ) that will hold them in the winter, so we spent a good bit of time fishing those, anywhere from 20-40' deep. We use a weedless ned rig and fish it painstakingly slow through the piles. It can be a really fun time if you find a brush pile with a lot of fish on it. We didn't catch a ton, maybe a dozen between the three of us, and they were little, but given the conditions, I was happy! The highlight of the day for me, was catching fish in 3 new spots I had never fished before. Fishing that slowly in really deep water is a tough thing to do with confidence, so finding a couple new areas was really rewarding. The ned rig is a vastly underrated bait for cold water. She has lipstick on so you know it's cold!

Not on purpose, I was targeting walleye and sauger When the line gets super taut across their teeth, I think that's when a problem happens. Often I have had the 4" keitech I use for walleye in the back of their throat when I land them, the line will be shredded but not to the point where it can't hold them. But at the same time, 15-20lb line will cut like butter on a jig hookset, just because it gets taut.

On a tiny little #6 shad rap. I've now caught 30 musky during my time at WVU now and this one beat my previous pb by an inch. This fish was 44" long, pretty fat too! Fun fight on a spinning rod, I was using 10lb braid to a 10lb red label fluorocarbon leader. Can't tell you how many musky I've landed on 10 and 12lb red label!

Go to deep creek and fish a jerkbait like you are bass fishing. Don't use anything too expensive, lots of pike and pickerel!

Cold water, fish the jig slow or bounce the stereotypical cold water crankbaits off rock. All this crawfish talk is making my head hurt.

Here's a big ol ned rig brown fish from East Tennesee This one is from PA

I'll go, but only on one condition... We long arm the smallmouth in photos

Ned can always catch em. You'd have a tough time fishing in in vegetation though (you can swim it over grass but you'd want a slow presentation with finicky cold front bass), you'll have to find some kind of hard bottom to fish it. Lighter weight heads and fish slowwww.

Going to be a very special Classic. Historic! I'll be there, had too much fun last year and I have a tournament on KY lake a few days before. Plus it's spring break from school. No brainer