One of the best areas you can fish around this time of year if your lake has it is the remaining green vegetation. Several of our central and southern lakes have some submerged vegetation, including Summit, Hardy and Patoka. I've heard of some deep grass at Brookville, also. There are probably others.
Even in this really cold water, certain species of grass will still be green and thriving. Two of the last to go are cabbage and coontail. In the pic above, that's some coontail that Jacob pulled up out of a 35-acre pit he was fishing last weekend with the rattle bait he had tied on. On the right was the 6.1 lb. reward for his efforts. For some tips on fishing lipless baits around vegetation in the winter, check out these tips from Alton Jones.
There's not a lot of time left to fish open water around these parts, but if you venture south or west to a lake with grass you'll be able to apply this information this winter. These same species of grass will be some of the first to come out of hibernation and green up in the spring, where again lipless baits will be one of the strongest patterns.
A couple interesting tidbits to throw in...
- In the last Bassmaster Classic this past February, Kevin VanDam won throwing a Red Eye Shad around green coontail he found in Beeswax Cr. with water temps in the mid 40's. Other top finishers found the same pattern and area.
- Up until just a couple years ago, Lake Waveland had a good bit of coontail in it.
- The last IBF tourney I fished down on Patoka in mid-August 2003, I sacked a limit of bass for a 2nd place finish, all by cranking a couple patches of deep coontail I found that apparently nobody else had. It's probably still in there if you look.
Which lipless crank is that? Looks very realistic.
Posted by: John | December 02, 2010 at 04:12 PM
John - That is a Strike King Red Eye Shad, and a pretty chewed up one at that. Not certain of the exact size or color though.
Posted by: Big Indiana Bass | December 02, 2010 at 10:17 PM
John- That is actually a Strike King Red Eye Shad custom foiled by Tater Hog Custom Lures here is the link
http://www.taterhogcustomlures.com/index.html
Posted by: Jacob Wheeler | December 02, 2010 at 11:18 PM
Just out of curiosity, what causes the massive disappearance of coontail? I'm sure there is no one simple answer. For instance, two of the lakes I fish most often over here in Ohio had the coontail disappear nearly completely 8 or 10 years ago, though it is slowly making a comeback. One lake had a weed line that virtually went all of the way around the lake, and grew in the same depth everywhere. The other lake had a lot as well. The broader leafed cabbage type plants seemed unaffected.
Would the coontail have been killed off by lower than normal winter draw down? We had a couple of wetter than normal springs around that time as well. All I recall is that on both lakes the weeds were there one year and GONE the next.
Posted by: Joe Vanfossen | December 03, 2010 at 11:38 AM
Good question Joe. Hard to say for certain, but since coontail technically doesn't root to the bottom and has very good cold resistance, as well as the ability to reproduce easily from fragments, that typically leaves only a few options for disappearance.
Most likely would be a case of either high or turbid water. Either works to decrease light penetration, and doing that for any length of time, especially early in the season when the plants would normally be coming out of quiescence can knock the population down quick.
Next most likely would be any type of chemical treatments, including something as "harmless" as a copper treatment for algae, though again, research suggests that murky water makes copper treatment about twice as effective as clear water against coontail.
Last would be oddball situations like grass carp or radical base water quality changes, especially things like pH or hardness in the case of coontail. If I had to guess, I'd say the "wetter than normal springs" did it in, especially if that entailed extended high and/or murky water periods.
Posted by: Big Indiana Bass | December 03, 2010 at 07:43 PM