My Top Spring Bass Lures

Winter Bass Fishing Lures Lake Of The Ozarks

WInter Bass Fishing Baits Lake Of The Ozarks 

    Winter time bass fishing can be either really good or really tough. It's all about knowing what to look for and using the right cold water lures. A few staple baits for cold winter bass are an “A rig” or Alabama rig, jerk bait, and a finesse jig. All baits have a different role to play on the water everyday in the winter. That being they all fish in a different water column, some are more for hunger bites, while others you can work into a good reaction bait. 

An Alabama rig is a bait that mimics a ball of shad using 5 wires with 3 that have paddle tail swimbaits on them with two dummy swimbaits. In the state of Missouri it is against the law to use all 5 hooks you are only allowed 3. you can do a long cast over a wide area mimicking a ball of bait, controlling with your reel speed how fast or slow the bait will move. The slower you reel the deeper it will be, while reeling the bait faster will keep it in the middle to top half of the water column. . You can also give your rod big twitches or strokes to entice a reaction bite out of fish watching or following the rig. I generally use 3.8in swimbaits on my arig with ¼ oz jig heads paired with the swimbait. The rod set up I use is a 7’4ft heavy action with 20 lb fluorocarbon paired with a fast action reel like 7.2.1. A key component to loading the boat with a rig fish is wind, having that direct wind on the bank, point or dock you're casting on is very important. 

A jerkbait is a great lure for cold water but can be good all year round as it's a fast action reaction bait. Most jerk baits dive a range between 6-8 feet but sometimes with some deeper winter fish a deeper style jerkbait can be a really good bet. Having a deeper jerkbait allows you to work the bait in 12+ feet of water giving you a deeper range of fish to target. It's all about the cadence of how you work the bait, for the winter most people give their bait a 6-8 second pause in between twitches. twitch , twitch , twitch pause for 6-8 seconds and repeat. The colder and more lethargic your fish are the longer you let it pause. I catch them on 12-20 second long pauses when my bait is in a school or high potential area. Some of my favorite jerkbaits to throw are a megabass 110, spro mcstick, jackall rerange and a lucky craft pointer. All of these model baits come in a deeper bill size for the deeper staging fish that won't come up for the traditional jerkbait.

A finesse jig is a great bait to slow down and pick apart an area where you have gotten bit or found fish on the electronics. Some staple colors are ozark craw, black and blue and anything dark green or brown.  Slow dragging and hopping a small jig can be a good way to pick up some slower moving less active fish more towards the bottom. The Size jig heads I tend to use most are  3/8 and 5/16oz for skipping or pitching on more of the shallow docks in about 1-20 feet. If you find some bass staged in around 20-35 ft I would use a 1/2oz finesse jig to get down deeper and have a faster rate of fall, sometimes those bass react to a fast sinking jig. A jig is a bait I will slow down and pick apart an area where I know there are fish, I wouldn't necessarily go randomly casting it looking for bass this time of year. 

Don't be afraid of those cold windy days this winter sometimes those days have the best action for big bass. I have plenty of availability this winter and early spring, fish with Catching Ozarks Guide Service for a fun educational, action packed day of loading the boat with big bass.

Grant Nisbet

Catching Ozarks Guide Service

Lake Of The Ozarks Winter Crappie Fishing

  Winter time Crappie fishing at Lake of the Ozarks can be phenomenal, some of the best crappie fishing in the mid west. Lake of the Ozarks is home to over thousand miles of bank lines loaded with docks and cover making it an amazing crappie fishery. 

When the water temp gets into the 40s the crappie tend to school up deeper on main lake areas. The main lake areas I tend to look for are close or along the sides of a channel bank. Channel banks are the deepest side of the lake, for example a big steep bluff or big chunk rock bank on the main lake generally has a channel along it. Channels banks act as highways for crappies to move from their shallow spring spawning areas to there deep summer and winter spots. Steep channel bluffs, bluff ends and long points can hold a lot of suspended crappie all winter long. Deep main lake commercial docks can be great this time of the year, especially if they’re suspended brush piles on them. Personal and commercial docks are all anchored to the bottom using big cable bails which is another form of structure crappie like to suspend on. Using my electronics I side scan parallel to the dock giving me an image of what is to the left and right of me. Using electronics can be very beneficial so you know what’s structure is under all the docks and where the fish are in the water column.

Now that I have located some structure that is holding a school of crappie how do I get them to bite? Well there are few techniques that work really well in cold water for me which is dead sticking the bait, meaning just letting it sit still in the water column where you have located the school. Let's say the school I found ranges between 8 feet under the surface all the way to 15 feet deep. I would start off dead sticking in 8 feet then slowly move the bait down through the school after letting it sit in each water column, until you find the active fish. A few of my favorite cold water baits to dead stick are Crappie magnets, bobby garland baby shads and a live minnow.  Recently I have been catching crappies around 8-10  feet under the surface suspended above brush piles hanging in 20 feet of water. The size jig heads I rig for dead sticking range between  1/16 and 1/8th and 1/4 oz depending on how deep your fishing.  Trial and error will teach you a lot about where and what the crappie are honed in on. All because one school will not bite does not mean the rest won't. I Tend to Fish Multiple spots until you find the active school of crappie im looking for. The crappie tend to bite the best on the cold windy days so bundle up and let's go fishing!

Spring Crappie Smack Down

3/12/20 - LOCATING SPRING CRAPPIE

The transition from winter to spring is some of the best crappie fishing all year around. The Crappie school up tremendously, moving in large numbers in the channel throughout Lake of The Ozarks.

In early spring I generally look for deep water channel banks in large creeks that has a decent amount of cover. cover being dock cables, brush piles, wires, concrete pillars any subtle irregularity in the bank for a school to stage and sit on.

Crappie are predators so they use cover as ambush points to attack shad. Finding deeper water is key when water temps are still in the 40s or at least fishing areas with a deep channel near by. Winter crappie sit on deep main lake brush and rock, schooled up sitting very lethargic. In spring the crappie are loaded with eggs looking ready to spawn, once the water temp hits high 40s or low 50s the crappie start thinking about transitioning into their creeks or pockets with shallow banks of pea gravel. 

Think of a lake channel as a highway for fish, moving and swimming to different staging points. “Pea Gravel” is smaller chunk rock more even in size, while channel banks have bigger deep rocks you can quite often see the difference in the steepness of banks for example a bluff is a channel bank. Crappie generally start to spawn in 50-58 degree water but sometimes a little earlier and some late starters often occur.

TODAYS FISHING

The crappie I caught today were about 8 feet off the bank in a large creek staging above a brush pile on a deeper 20+ foot channel bank.

Rigging a bobber with crappie jig or minnow keeps the bait in the water column in which the crappie are suspended. Allowing you to twitch the jig inside of the school without getting hung in the brush. If the crappie go deeper in the brush just position your bobber higher up your line letting the crappie jig to go deeper.

When getting bit with a bobber try and relax if it bounces once or twice that does not initially mean set the hook. Let you bobber slowly go under before letting one rip. Solid rule of thumb when theres one crappie theres more where that came from!!! Just slow down and do multiple cast in the same general area when you got bit.

Most importantly have fun, enjoy the beautiful weather and killer spring bite!!

Grant

CATCHING OZARKS GUIDE SERVICE