Winter Bass Fishing Projects

[GoneFishingLTN]

I'm sure this has been posted often, but a quick search mostly brought up winter fishing. For those whose lakes freeze over or who simply take a break during the winter, what do you do that's bass fishing-related during the frozen months?

[A-Jay]

Clean, lubricate and protect fishing gear.

Read about fishing and fishing gear.

Buy and Sell fishing gear.

🤓

A-Jay

[Jigfishn10]

Gonna be a quiet winter as far as fishing activities are concerned. I have a few reels to clean up but other than that, really nothing.

 

I usually tie up some bucktails but really didn’t go thru that many last season.
 

I may have a rod guide to replace. I’ll have to take a look see …  

[12poundbass]

I sure as heck am not ice fishing! 😂

[GoneFishingLTN]

1 hour ago, A-Jay said:

Clean, lubricate and protect fishing gear.

Read about fishing and fishing gear.

Buy and Sell fishing gear.

🤓

A-Jay

Not to much watching? What do you like to read up on?

[MIbassyaker]

47 minutes ago, GoneFishingLTN said:

What do you like to read up on?

 

[gim]

I hunt in November and December.

 

Jan and Feb are my downtime periods.  If my reels need servicing, I address that.  I need to install an new on board charger for my cranking/starting battery too but that is obviously not a routine thing done every winter.

 

March is when I start re-spooling all my reels that need it and stocking up on various items needed for the upcoming season.

 

Ice fishing, no chance.  I'd rather spend a night in jail.

[Tackleholic]

My lake doesn't freeze, but I do.  Pull my boat from the slip around New Years, have the motor serviced and the boat detailed;  remove every last item of equipment and tackle, install any remaining Lowrance updates.  Upon completion of these tasks I perform necessities on tackle, then begin loading the boat back up for return to the slip around March 1st.  This winter, mostly due to my tackle addiction, I will be adding another 24'x8' section of vinyl slat wall in my man cave.

[Bankbeater]

Clean reels, replace hooks, reorganize baits.  Scout out new water I find on Google Earth if the roads and weather allow it.

[DogBone_384]

I've been lucky.  Southeastern MA & Cape Cod haven't frozen in the last three years.  I don't fish as much, but I still get out.

 

Family obligations keep me pretty busy, but I clean all my gear and read/watch as much as I can to absorb more fishing mojo so I can be like @A-Jay, @Fishing Rhino, @Mr. Aquarium, and @Saltysmalljaws when I 'grow up'.

[softwateronly]

8 hours ago, 12poundbass said:

I sure as heck am not ice fishing! 😂

I can get behind this....

 

I usually think about Texas and Florida, but the last couple years it's @AlabamaSpothunter's quiet coves full of feeding bass.

 

scott

[AlabamaSpothunter]

Thanks Scott!    If I was built for the winters like you tough yanks, I'd have it all 😁

[softwateronly]

2 minutes ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

Thanks Scott!    If I was built for the winters like you tough yanks, I'd have it all 😁

Nothing whiskey and timing the bite windows couldn't fix, I have faith in you!

 

scott

[Columbia Craw]

Clean and lube reels.  Buy what A-Jay decides to sell.  

[Koz]

Clean and lubricate gear, organize tackle including rounding up wayward soft plastics that appear to be everywhere in my house and shed, and work on my kayak.

 

My kayak projects include converting my Livescope pole from fixed to articulated, streamlining me electrical wiring and components, reducing weight, and coming up with a better system and solution to take tournament submission photos.

[GRiver]

We really don’t have a close out kinda winters here. I’m shutting myself down, well my boat did for me, it’s down in a major way.  Work on boat and trailer, thinking about putting an on board charger in the boat. Do rod and reel maintenance that kinda thing. 

[king fisher]

[ike8120]

 Reels: Clean, lubricate, back off the drags,respool line if necessary. Rods: check guides for wear and clean, reseal cork grips. Tackle: check hooks, look for wear an tear replace if necssary.,  This is spread out over a few months.

[looking45]

My lake doesn’t freeze but some days are cold enough to keep me home. I’ll be putting together Christmas packages for my fishing and lunch buddies. 

[dytmook]

I'll respool my limited reels. Benefit of wading is you can only carry a few rods efficiently so it keeps the tackle monkey at bay a bit.  I will pour some lead jigs. This year I think I'm going to start making my own micro jigs. I did well on them this summer but the color selection is meh. Might be able to sell a few too. Also need to set up the new garage for tinkering.  

[papajoe222]

Fishing related, I organize my tackle, inventory it, make a list of items to purchase, swap out, or sharpen hooks as needed, clean and lube all reels, clean rods and check guides for defects, replace all Z-Rust strips and then organize my pegboard of extra baits.

Sometime in early March, I'll rotate the tires on my trailer, repack the bearings, grease everything that has a grease fitting, including the jack and run the optimization program on the onboard charger.

Normally I'll do two rod builds over the winter, one for a family member and another for a vet from my local VFW.

As for non-fishing actilvities, I'll load a few hundred rounds of .223 plinking ammo and a hundred or so for bench rest for both it and my .308.

[Spankey]

Don’t have a lot of maintenance to do on my setups. All are in very good condition. Closer to restart of the season I’ll have lines I want to replace. I have some drop shot baits and terminal tackle I want to reorganize. Make up the kit to fit my needs better. I want to take one of my ML setups and one of my Medium setup and convert it to a braid and Fluoro leader setup. I’m willing to bite and see if sensitivity is increased. Been a long coming to try this. 
I’m not sure how well my winter downtime is gonna work out. I’ve been dealing with a major problem with a rotator cuff and bicep tendon issue for months. The medical system sort of sucks to where they are dragging this out on me. Is taking forever to get an MRI and surgery or whatever all I need. If a major surgery is needed I want it now. Probably is something that takes months to recover and I want to be fishing by the end of March at the latest. I struggled fishing the last couple few months but I didn’t let it keep me down and out. 
I’ll catch a couple of shows and seminars over the winter I’m sure. 
I’m the most bummed out because I can’t shoot because of this injury. I can’t hunt like this. I can’t shoot sporting clays or trap like this. I just have to get it resolved so that life gets back to normal. 

[JHoss]

I plan to do braid split rings on all my cranks this winter. I'll clean them up and purge a few while I'm at it. That should be enough to keep me entertained between the end of hunting season and the start of tournament season.

[CastingClinic]

Crafting spinnerbaits on top the usually cleaning, re-spooling, and organizing.

 

I also have a project planned to add an ESC to my Newport 55lb trolling motor.  I started the year using a PWM but that proved not to be robust enough and I burned through two before setting it all aside for winter.

 

Being able to throttle my motor down until the prop barely moves was unbelievably helpful on my canoe. 

[Smirak]

On 12/1/2024 at 10:03 AM, A-Jay said:

Clean, lubricate and protect fishing gear.

Read about fishing and fishing gear.

Buy and Sell fishing gear.

🤓

A-Jay

That is so a lie. You don’t wait until the winter to buy and sell 😂😂😂😂