How deep is deep for winter largemouths?

[B@ss Hunt3r]

I'm wondering how deep of water will bass seek out during the winter months? Will they seek the deepest water in the surrounding area? Will they move to the nearest deep water cover closest to their spawnig grounds?How far will they travel to find this water? Will a field of stumps in 18-20ft of water suffice if the main body of water channel is say 30ft? I know that's a lot of info but any insight will help. Thanks

[Pitchinkid]

http://www.***.com/articles/winter_bass2.shtml

[Catt]

I'm wondering how deep of water will bass seek out during the winter months?

Depends on the geological location of the body of water

Will they seek the deepest water in the surrounding area?

Yes

Will they move to the nearest deep water cover closest to their spawning grounds?

Yes, depending on the size of the body of water

How far will they travel to find this water?

As far as necessary

Will a field of stumps in 18-20ft of water suffice if the main body of water channel is say 30ft?

That would probably do it

[Pitchinkid]

http://www.bassedge.com/pages/show/Deep_Jigging_For_Winter_Bass and another

[stratos 375]

Mr. Catt answered your questions, so I won't comment any further. I did however look at the *** link provided by another. I think some of the things Mr. *** said need proving. He claims that bass in cold water lose thier balance & may have trouble propping themselves up on the bottom? I think not. I've pulled way too many bass thru a foot of ice to believe that.

He also goes on to say that some young of the year can become completely frozen & come springtime just swim away? I think not. Very few species on the planet can survive that kind of devastation on the celluar level. Although it has been documented with some amphibians & some forms of life that dwell in the polar reigons, but bass fry? no way.

[WRB]

The reason bass have air bladders is to be able to suspend at whatever depth they have acclimated to.

The "air" in the bladder is gas created by the basses digestive system and it takes several hours to add or subtract "air" (gas) in the air bladder. Have you ever watched bass float suspended in a large fish aquarium? the bass are suspended, ideal air bladder pressure for the depth they are in.

If you take a balloon filled with air and submerged it down 30 feet, the balloon would shrink in size and return to it's full size when brought back up to the surface. The same thing happens to a bass air bladder. The amount of pressure in the bladder to suspend the bass at 30 feet will expand the air bladder when the bass come up to the surface and shrink back down when the bass returns to 30 feet. If the bass swims down to 60 feet, the bass needs to add more gas pressure to the air bladder to suspend at that depth, otherwise the bass must swim to stay up right. It takes about 24 hours for the bass to adjust it's air bladder pressure for each 15 feet of depth. Bass can generally move up and down within a 30 foot range, without the air bladder expanding beyond the basses ability to return to it's neutral depth.

If you catch a bass that has neutral air bladder pressure for 60 foot depth and bring it to the surface, the air bladder expands like the balloon and the bass can't swim back down on it's own.

Poking a hole in the air bladder releases the gas pressure and the bass can remain up right, but must continue to swim or it will sink, no air bladder pressure can be developed until the hole heals and any water is absorbed in the bladder. The deeper the bass goes down, the more difficult it is to pressurize the wounded air bladder.

Try to avoid fishing any deeper than 30 feet. Even at 30 feet, you may catch a bass that raised up from deeper water to strike your lure and will have air bladder problems if not returned immediately. When this happens you can insert a heavy torpedo sinker (8 to 12 oz) in the basses throat and lower the weighted bass down on a line to 30-40 feet, then lift the line and weight will pull out of the bass.

How deep bass will go depends on where the warmest water is during the cold water period and where the prey is located. Warm water with a good prey source; if that is 28 feet, then that is deep enough. If that is 60 feet, that is too deep for me to target bass and I will look for bass at 30 to 40 feet max.

WRB

PS; it's common for largemouth bass to be 60' to 90' deep in the local lakes and they are safe from me catching them.

[WRB]

It was a common belief 15 years ago that crayfish hibernated the mud. In fact I wrote an article in In-Fisherman back in 1976 & 1995 making that statement.

I was wrong; crayfish don't hibernate. They do burrow in the mud and will also go very deep in the deep cold water lakes, providing bass a prey source year around.

Back in the 50's California's DFG flash froze rainbow trout and air dropped the frozen blocks of trout into high elevation lakes as a means of stocking those remote lakes. They no longer do that due to laws against stocking non native fish. Trout evidently can be frozen in water and survive.

If bass had to swim down into deeper water from shallower, more than 15 feet deeper, quickly and stayed down, they need time to add enough air bladder gas to be able to suspend and would in lay on their side when not swimming. The bass will usually find deep weeds or wood if available to rest in, until they get the air bladder adjusted.

I don't think the statement is too far off, this happens with fizzed bass.

WRB

[brushhoggin]

WRB just knows. I feel like i would be a better bass fisherman if i'dve actually remembered everything from my science and biology classes.

[Deleted account]

digestive gases? 24 hours to adjust? where are we getting this?

[IwillChooseFreeWill]

There are bass pulled out of rocky streams and lakes during the winter months that have sores on their heads, and after further study, apparently they push around small rocks to get after the buried craws and whatever else they can get

[WRB]

digestive gases? 24 hours to adjust? where are we getting this?

Research Physoclistous swim bladders.

WRB

[Eternal Angler]

I would have to say 15 feet+

[Wayne P.]

Another thing to consider is that the densest water is about 39 degrees and if it gets colder than that, it's buoyant. That means in a lot of bodies of water if the surface temp is close to freezing, the fish will be on or near the bottom until the shallower water warms above 39 degrees.

[SkeetyCCTX]

I fished an Amistad tourny on the 7th and we caught fish as deep and 48 ft!!  We even heard of fish being caught on jigging spoons in depths of 60, but not confirmed!

Now, must of are fish came in 20-30 feet, but there were plenty of fish deeper.  The fish that I caught at 48 feet was my deepest bass ever! 

The thing that will be weird to yall yankees, is that the surface temps were only as low as 53 degrees!  That probably seems warm to some of yall, but I guess that Texas bass are like Texan people, wussies when it comes to the cold!

[erau618]

Sometimes they don't go deep.  I caught a 4.25 lb largmouth in about a foot of water last week in 45 degree water.  I pulled it out of a grass mat with a jig.

[bighed]

A fisherman should be careful not to assume that bass in deep water in the winter are near or at the bottom.

[TommyBass]

A local lake of mine varies in depth from side to side. Its a total of 80 acres.... one side's deepest water is around 11 ft and the other side's deepest water is around 60 ft.

I fished both sides the very same day and caught fish on both sides. The deep side consisted of fish holding on the bend of a drop off, around 25-30ft deep. The shallow side the fish were caught out of a ditch with some timber on it around 9 ft deep. Actually the biggest fish I caught was around a 6 lber and it was in that ditch; however, more fish usually come off of the deep water drop off.

I tend to think that they will just go to the neerest deep water as long as it suffices. Try the deepest areas around certain parts of the lake and focus on structure and cover near those areas. And like they said, the depth at which they hold / suspend can vary day by day based off weather, food, etc.

[SkeetyCCTX]

Tommy, it is not uncommon to catch bass in shallow water during the winter, even when alot of fish are deep!  I once read an article stating that there are 3 types of bass.  One, bass that always stay deep!  Two, bass that always stay shallow!  Three, bass that alternate between deep and shallow!  Its kinda like people, some like the country, some like the cities; and some live in both!

Anyways, here in Texas a person can typically catch shallow fish year round, that doesnt mean that the best fishing will be shallow; it just means that a few fish will always be there.  Me, Im the kinda fisherman that likes to target those transition points and catch the fish moving between deep and shallow.  I look for places where deep water meets shallow water, and try to fish the exact location that I think the fish will congregate at as they move between the two!  It works for me!

Also, I heard something in an above points talking about how bass will not always hold directly on the bottom during cold weather.  This is very true, they also do this when temps are extremely hot.  These are suspended fish, and they are in the thermocline!  The thermocline is a middle area that usually contains alot of O2 and a stable temp.  Recently, I incountered a lot of suspended fish on a trip to Canyon lake in the TX hill country.  This fish were in parts of the lake that contained about 60 feet of water, but they were suspended in about 30 feet!  They can be tricky to catch because of this weird positioning.  Good baits to try are: suspending jerkbaits, tubes, swimbaits, and the hair float tech!

[Matt Fly]

My north TX lakes, most shad are around the 27ft mark.

      Winter in North East Tex, the best temp indicator for warmest water will be at the depth the shad are at.

    Shad are fragile, the later fry spawned in july august are the ones the cold temps kill off first.

     Shad will start to die once temps plummet past 50 degrees.

  Find shad, you find the warmest water in the lake most likely, and for cold blooded species, an half degree can mean eating or not.   In Jan, you find shad in the back of a creek, most likely, theirs runoff from something and that water coming in is warmer than current conditions.

     If those shad stayed in that creek for a long period, the bass will migrate back there with them cause of bait and warmer water.

Find the bait, find the depth, so simple.      

   

[WRB]

Bass fisherman should study the baits that are predominate where they fish. Threadfin shad and crayfish are the predominate baits below the Mason-Dixon line or snow belt.

There are good studies with pictures available on the Internet.

Before the 60's out west we didn't have threadfin shad as a bait, they where introduced around the late 1950's.

Bass stayed near shore because the prey source was located near shore. Threadfin shad changed that, they are pelagic bait fish and the schools move out into deeper water as the sun gets higher and go deeper in the cold water period to survive. Threadfin shads lower water temperature limit is around 42 degrees.

If your lake has only demersal bait fish, fish that live near shore or on the bottom, then you need to concentrate where those baits live.

You might not want to know any of this and just go fishing and that's OK.

WRB