All I Want for Christmas…
Mid Winter Michigan Bassin with Matt Morgan
and Nick Neves
Written by Matt Morgan
If
you have bass fishing in your blood like me, then you will appreciate
my goal of catching bass in open water, through Christmas. If
you have any brains, unlike me, you wouldn’t try it in Michigan.
December 20th
2006 was a beautiful sunny day, with a scorching high of 39 degrees.
On a whim my
tournament partner Nick Neves
and I decided to hit the lake one last time. We
arrived at around 1:00 in the afternoon. The sun
was near it’s peak without a cloud in the sky. Our
only problem was that the launch ramp was iced over with about a
¼ inch of ice. Although we could see the
open water, we couldn’t get to it. After
traveling to the other side of the lake, we were relieved to see that
we still had an opportunity to wet our lines and the bottom of the boat.
We launched the boat with no problems and surprisingly Nick’s
Mercury EFI started without a hitch.
The last few times
out, our honey holes were depleting. Nick wanted to
start there and eliminate them right off the bat. I
wanted to look deep near some points of bluff like banks because I’ve
never caught them shallow (5ft or less) when the water was this cold.
He remained persistent and because we were also in his boat he
had the power of veto. As we motored to our hole,
an open lake bay near a channel with a culvert at the back.
We had the typical cold water jig and real po rk tied on, as
well as our go-to blade baits. Nick also had a
balsa crankbait tied on but I didn’t believe that he would catch
anything on it. I chuckled at his decision
and shrugged it off. Just my luck after 5 casts
when he blurted out “got ‘em.”
“On what,” I asked.
“Not that stupid crankbait?”
I looked down at the
bottom of the lake and saw waves of baitfish. Not
hundreds or even thousands, but quite possibly ten’s of thousands of
little bluegill and crappie in 5 feet of water.
We fished until 3:30
(2 ½ hours) that afternoon and caught 10 or 12 bass and 4 of
them were good keepers. Bigger than 2 pounds.
It wasn’t close to the
best day we ever had, but it was great for the conditions and in spite
of the fact that 
most any other bass fisherman around would
laugh in disbelief at the idea of taking a boat out this time of year.
We were very pleased with our efforts.
That
evening I began reflecting on our day and reviewed everything I knew
about winter bass fishing. I came to the
conclusions that never have I researched or experienced catching bass
in 5 feet, 36 degree water.
If you are like me,
you go by the book when figuring out the game of bass fishing.
From now on there are only three rules that I will follow at all
times. No matter what time of year. Follow
the bait fish, never limit my tackle to seasonable categories, and keep
an open mind every time I go out. If
it wasn’t for Nick’s persistence to fish the same areas that we have
caught them in earlier in the year, I may have went home that evening
bummed that the fishing season was over but now I’m trying to figure
out how I can get back out.