Cold front advice...

[DitchPanda]

So here's the deal- last weekend thru yesterday our temps were 70s-80s- wake up today its rainy windy with a high around 50. Tomorrow looks like more of the same. Went out today and caught 1 on a lizard,one on a chatterbait (actually siebert fogy)off the bank a ways and missed one on a spinnerbait right on the bank in maybe a foot of water...not much of a pattern there. Water temps in my area are low mid 50s. Area I'm fishing is a little to snaggy for Ned rig...that would be my go to in this situation otherwise. So I'm in an area I'm confident has fish, the water temps are decent and tomorrow is the 2nd day into a rainy cool down. What would you throw? 

[jimmyjoe]

   I'm in almost the same situation as you are; temps dropped and it's raining.

   The last 2 I got were on a Johnson Silver Minnow with a spinnerbait skirt for a trailer, fished slow. Caught them in less than 8 feet of water, fairly close to shore, and I saw them come up from below to intercept it.

   Last 2 times out, I saw 7 or 8 other people fishing. One .... and only one ..... caught a fish. He was too far away for me to see what he was using.

   Good luck to you. In this weather, you're gonna need it!         jj

[Finessegenics]

If you're certain you're around fish then I'd give a small plastic a go. How are you fishing that ned? I'd try a slow but constant retrieve "ticking" across those snags if you already aren't doing that. Just make sure your jighead is light enough. The bite usually just feels "mushy" and it's worked for me in the dog days of summer and also late in the fall. 

[813basstard]

Weightless fluke

[DitchPanda]

50 minutes ago, Finessegenics said:

If you're certain you're around fish then I'd give a small plastic a go. How are you fishing that ned? I'd try a slow but constant retrieve "ticking" across those snags if you already aren't doing that. Just make sure your jighead is light enough. The bite usually just feels "mushy" and it's worked for me in the dog days of summer and also late in the fall. 

I'm using a 1/16oz head and never really stopping it but the problem is the area I'm in has flooded bad in the past so there is alot of random stickups that I can't see with the cloud cover and stained water. I tried it today and pulled it out if 4 snags in 3 casts...so that's out.

[Finessegenics]

26 minutes ago, DitchPanda said:

I'm using a 1/16oz head and never really stopping it but the problem is the area I'm in has flooded bad in the past so there is alot of random stickups that I can't see with the cloud cover and stained water. I tried it today and pulled it out if 4 snags in 3 casts...so that's out.

I see, I wrongly assumed the snags were coming from deadsticking it. I know what kind of water you’re talking about and it can get real frustrating.
 

A weightless plastic like @813basstard could work well. It should be a bit more resistant to hang-ups. I personally prefer a stickworm if you think the fish are gonna be on a “slow” deal. Pull my rod tip upwards and let the worm fall to the bottom on semi slack line and repeat over and over again. 
 

I work my soft jerkbaits pretty aggressively.  My cadence is usually rod twitch, two very quick turns on the reel and pause to let the bait sink for 5-10 seconds. Then repeat. The quick handle turns make the bait dart like crazy, and it seems to elicit more of a reaction bite. 

[GetFishorDieTryin]

Dont worry about water temp, once the water is in the 50s the prespawn is well underway.  Your going to find some fish will be pushing shallow where others are still on secondary points.  If you know the areas where the fish like to spawn start shallow and if you cant get bit go a little deeper to secondary points, ledges and or cover thats closest to where the fish usually bed.  If you can get out there just as the pressure starts to change you can really get into them.  Most of my best days have been cool rainy/windy days in March.   

When I think of a rainy day the first thing that come to mind is a spinnerbait, rain just seems to make them even more effective.  You can fish them like a crankbait in cover like that standing timber without worrying about snags.  Keep jigs and shakey heads in mind around cover, this time of year Ive found bottom contact baits produce numbers and size. 

[padon]

i would try and see if i could get them to eat a spinnerbait or bladed jig first.they may not. next i would try a regular jig and or a shakey head would be my next move

[Deleted account]

If they won't eat a moving bait, then a weightless plastic. 

[PhishLI]

14 hours ago, DitchPanda said:

So here's the deal- last weekend thru yesterday our temps were 70s-80s- wake up today its rainy windy with a high around 50.

One thing you can count on with a temp drop like that combined with wind is that heat will be sucked out of shallow water rapidly.

 

Last Wednesday, after a few days of steady warmer temps, I fished a shallow lake. The bluegill I encountered were moving quickly when they spotted me, or when I invaded their space. Bass were hitting baits on a steady retrieve somewhere between slow and medium. We then had over night temps at freezing on both Friday and Saturday. It became quite chilly again by Sunday night when I returned. The slight green stain that was present on Wednesday had been shocked to clear by the cold and wind. I'm pretty tolerant of the cold when I wade, but my feet were hurting in short order where I was perfectly comfortable for hours just 5 days earlier.

 

The bluegill I came across near the bank were frozen in place. When I pointed my light at them they barely moved if at all. The bass wouldn't touch a shallow crank in shallow water, or anything that wasn't a super slow rolled plastic. If the bluegill were any indication I doubt the bass were chasing anything. More than likely the bait needed to be dragged right past their noses for the hits I got. It's tough to get a hookup in this scenario on a skin hooked weedless rigged plastic. When they're keyed in on small baitfish on the bottom they'll spit anything out of the ordinary in a split second. Weeds aren't up yet here, but there's a blanket of filamentous algae on the bottom where I was working. A small swimmer on an open hook moved slowly was an exercise in frustration.

[WRB]

14 hours ago, DitchPanda said:

So here's the deal- last weekend thru yesterday our temps were 70s-80s- wake up today its rainy windy with a high around 50. Tomorrow looks like more of the same. Went out today and caught 1 on a lizard,one on a chatterbait (actually siebert fogy)off the bank a ways and missed one on a spinnerbait right on the bank in maybe a foot of water...not much of a pattern there. Water temps in my area are low mid 50s. Area I'm fishing is a little to snaggy for Ned rig...that would be my go to in this situation otherwise. So I'm in an area I'm confident has fish, the water temps are decent and tomorrow is the 2nd day into a rainy cool down. What would you throw? 

What you describe is a low pressure front not a cold front.

Cold front follows the low pressure front usually with blue skies and win.

Low pressure front with rain is usually good fishing conditions

Tom 

[PhishLI]

22 minutes ago, WRB said:

Low pressure front with rain is usually good fishing conditions

That may be true in a 100 ft deep mountain reservoir, or deep lake, but not in a 6-8 ft deep pudddle. A 25-30 degree temperature drop overnight in this scenario is lights out trash. Make that 2 days in a row as the OP describes, it aint going to be good. Never is.

[OkobojiEagle]

Brewer Spider head dressed with 3" piece of worm, 3/8oz dark colored single Colorado blade spinnerbait (Indiana blade if you've got one) hopped as a skirted jig across bottom.  Good Luck

 

oe

[WRB]

1 minute ago, PhishLI said:

That may be true in a 100 ft deep mountain reservoir, or deep lake, but not in a 6-8 ft deep pudddle. a 25-30 degree temperature drop overnight in this scenario is lights out trash. Make that 2 days in a row as the OP describes, it aint going to be good. Never is.

Doesn’t matter where you live a cold front isn’t windy rainy weather, that is a low pressure front. Air alone doesn’t radically change water temps over night, if it did all the bass would die from thermal shock from 10 degree change.

Tom

[MN Fisher]

9 minutes ago, PhishLI said:

That may be true in a 100 ft deep mountain reservoir, or deep lake, but not in a 6-8 ft deep pudddle. A 25-30 degree temperature drop overnight in this scenario is lights out trash. Make that 2 days in a row as the OP describes, it aint going to be good. Never is.

 

4 minutes ago, WRB said:

Doesn’t matter where you live a cold front isn’t windy rainy weather, that is a low pressure front. Air alone doesn’t radically change water temps over night, if it did all the bass would die from thermal shock from 10 degree change.

Tom

Tom's got the right of it - we just had conditions like that here. 80+ highs for a couple days, then dropped into the 50s.

 

Water temp in the shallow (under 15' average depth) lakes in the area dropped 1 degree at the surface. Air temp drops are not going to affect anything below 3'-4' enough to matter unless it goes on for a couple weeks.

[PhishLI]

31 minutes ago, WRB said:

Air alone doesn’t radically change water temps over night,

Wind is the X factor. Spawning flats here in the north will have some baitfish activity this time of year. Two days of rapid temperature drop combined with wind will render them lifeless until temps rise and steady out for a few days. Where I am there's no deep water to hold temps.

24 minutes ago, MN Fisher said:

Water temp in the shallow (under 15' average depth

15' deep is like an ocean around here. There may be a random hole that deep, but 4-6 deep is more like it close to the center of the water bodies. Up to that point they're 1-3 ft deep. I measure temps. They chill rapidly with wind. The bass cope.