Entry 134-3
Denny Brauer’s Five Best Winter Patterns
Spinner Baits for Wintertime Bassing
Editor's Note: Denny Brauer of Camdenton, Missouri, who's won just about every bass-fishing title there is, fishes in all kinds of weather and under many varied water conditions. This week he'll tell you how to catch bass in the winter.
Brauer: At this time of the year, I like to slow roll a white spinner bait. I prefer a 1/2-ounce or a 3/4-ounce spinner bait for this tactic. I'll be fishing the spinner bait on 15-pound-test line, and I prefer to fish at 8- to 12-feet deep with a spinner bait in the cold weather. I catch quality bass in that zone at this time of year. I like the nickel willow leaf blade on my spinner bait when I'm slow-rolling it. In most of the lakes where I live in the Ozarks, the bass will be feeding on shad in the winter months. Therefore, I want a bait that looks like the shad that the bass are accustomed to eating.
Remember when you're slow-rolling a spinner bait in the winter months that even a big bass may bite the spinner bait very softly. The only way you can tell you've had a strike is when you don't feel the blades on the spinner bait continuing to turn. But, this isn't always true. I've also had some really-violent strikes fishing
a spinner bait in winter. I know a lot of people think when the water temperature gets down to 36 to 39 degrees that they can't catch bass on a moving bait like the spinner bait. They believe that the only bait you can catch the bass on is a jig. But I've caught bass not only on spinner baits in that cold weather, but also on crank baits. I don't know why a bass will hit a crank bait in the winter, but I can tell you they do. What I've learned in late winter is that the bass usually will hit a crankbait first, then a spinner bait, then a jerkbait and finally a jig. I think the bass, when they're coming out of their late-winter pattern start feeding on crawfish, next shad and then crawfish again. I don't know why this, but this is what I've observed.
Wintertime fishing for bass is strange. Before I've actually cast a jig on top of the ice, pulled the jig off the ice and had the bass hit the jig as soon as it fell off the ice into the water. Everyone knows that bass aren't supposed to be up that shallow - that near the surface - in the winter months. But the bass don't know that.
