Cold Weather Put Bass on the Feed

Fishing Time: 8:30 am to 2:00 pm

Weather: Partly Cloudy, windy, cold – 39 degrees on arrival and mid 50s when we left

Moon Phase: Full Moon

Location: Newton Reservoir

Water Temp: 55 degrees

Best Baits: Spinnerbaits imitating crappies, and white lipless crankbaits

Who Went: Casey Davies, Dunc

My buddy Casey wanted to fish Newton Reservoir so we decided to plan a trip.  I thought it might be a bit early in the year and when the weather took a nose dive with the high for the day dropping 20 degrees on a post front of a storm, I started thinking of other lakes we could try.  I couldn’t think of anywhere better so we braved the cold temps and kept the plan for Newton.  It was 39 degrees when we arrived and the wind was whipping.  I didn’t have a lot of hope chasing warm water fish, but we bundled up, braved the wind, and launched the boat. Casey's dog Charlie came along for the ride and they way she sits is hilarious.  Looks like a human sitting on her butt.

The wind was bad and I couldn’t keep the boat steady on a shoreline, so we found what looked like a decent point and anchored the boat and started casting.  Casey was throwing a lipless crankbait and I threw a crappie colored spinnerbait.  It wasn't long before both of us were fighting bass.  I bet we caught 5 in the first 10 minutes.  

We started noticing that the bass were hitting right at the boat and after watching my active target it became obvious that we were sitting right on top of them. I moved the boat out a bit and started casting toward shore, but in a little deeper water.  It was game on and we probably put another 8 bass in the boat.  Most were small, but a couple decent bass snuck in the mix. It made me laugh how Charlie loved to lick the bass.  She didn't try to eat them, but just wanted a couple licks prior to us releasing them.

Late in the morning the wind died a bit and we decided to cruise the adjacent bay from the point throwing the same lures.  We caught a couple more bass in the bay and by then the wind died down to a slight breeze.  We moved to the shoreline I wanted to start the day fishing and spent the rest of our time cruising the entire shoreline and putting bass in the boat.  Most of them were average, but we did find a few that were around 3 pounds and made it fun.  Casey caught a good one that we thought would be the fish of the day.

Right before we finished the run of the entire west shoreline I hooked up and immediately knew it was a good one.  It didn’t move for a good 10 seconds.  It turned out to be the bass of the trip and we did weigh it at 4.23 pounds.  It was a good way to end a killer trip.  

We probably put more than 20 largemouth in the boat and as good as the bite was I thought we may luck into a musky. We were definitely throwing lures that work for musky up there, but we never did have any follows or see them. Today was a good example of not letting weather turn you off to fishing.  That front had them on the feed!