| Winter Jerk-Bait Fishing | |
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by Phil Williams
Mid-America Bass
Well, winter's finally here and to bass fisherman in Missouri, especially those who frequent Lake of the Ozarks, that means Jerk-Baits. You can read a ton of stuff from writers from all over the country and they will tell you about fishing the Jig and Pig, slow-rolling Spinner-Baits and a whole bunch of other patterns to catch bass in cold water during the winter months. At the "Lake" you can forget about all of that and fish one pattern all winter long and put a good butt-kickin' on the other patterns.
The only pattern you will need from now until Late February - Early March is the Suspended Jerk-Bait. There are a small group of guys at the "Lake" that drag Chompers all winter and occasionally draw a check by weighing a small limit of "Spots" but the vast majority of big bags and checks go to those throwing Suspended Jerk-Baits. After the last couple weeks of weather in the teen's and twenty's, we decided to head to the "Lake" and see if the cold snap had dropped the water temps. low enough to get the fish on one of my favorite patterns, the Suspended Jerk-Bait.
The air temperature was 17 degrees when we put in last Saturday (12/29/01) and was only to get to 20 degrees by days end, so we figured we had prime Jerk-Bait weather ahead if we could stand the high winds. To our amazement the water temp. was 48 degrees at 7 a.m., which is borderline for the Jerk-Bait bite. Oh well, we came here to establish a Jerk-Bait pattern and that's what we headed off to do.
When we got to one of our favorite Jerk-Bait spots we decided to drop the brush-piles we had brought then try or luck. After a couple of hours of picking ice out of the eyelet's on every cast, a half a dozen dinks and a white we headed to our very favorite Jerk-Bait spot and see if it would be worth enduring the bone-chilling, eyelet freezing on every cast, finger numbing, eye watering, nostril freezing, cold beyond belief wind.
Next page > Part 2 - How To Fish Jerkbaits > Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
