Typically, this time of year I don’t have a lot of baits on the deck, but I always have a Damiki rig or some type of small swimbait like a 2.8 Keitech attached to a 1/4 ounce or 3/8 head. When we get into February the lake is usually at its coldest and the fish are usually at their slowest. Their metabolism has slowed them down and they don’t really get excited about much. Chances are, the fish are going to be in small groups, rather than big singles cruising the shoreline looking for meat. The small groups are going to be hanging out in unsuspecting places at times and if you catch one, it’s a good idea to make multiple casts in the area because more than likely there will be more. It’s also a good idea to put your caught fish in the livewell when focusing on an area and release the fish when you leave the area. By releasing a caught fish in the area, you just caught it, often times it will spoil the bite and shut down the action. By holding the fish in the livewell for a bit, chances are you can extend the bite, especially when targeting ditch fish. Right now, the bearings are going out on my livewell pump so it’s the worser of two evils, I can release the fish boatside and take a chance on the fish swimming back down and telling his buddies that there is danger above or do I keep the fish, turning on my livewell and listen to the deafening squeal of the worn out bearing in the pump for the livewell?

I started out on Monday in Jeff Nail’s boat after a 28-day layoff from the lake. The water was around 48 degrees, and we were hitting the ditches early on a cold morning. It didn’t take long for Jeff to boat the first fish in 40 feet of water with a little swimbait on a 3/8-ounce jig head from Spot Choker. He showed me the new Spot Choker head and I got a few from him to try. I also got a few of Trixster Baits Damiki heads and between the two different heads we were able to put 9-10 fish in the boat by days end, mostly on the swimbaits out in deeper water. I threw my favorite shaky head worm around when I thought the terrain looked like wormy stuff, but I came away with very little on the shaky head. For that reason, Jeff and I stuck with the little swimbaits for the majority of the day. The cool part was that I got a good look at forward facing sonar again and I’m going to have it very soon on a newer boat.

On Tuesday I felt like hitting the lake again and ditches, swimbaits and worms were on my mind. I just had to test the rocky worm bite but that is at a lull for me. My usual wormy stuff just wasn’t producing but that’s the way the worm bite is at times. It can good or bad and when the shaky head bite isn’t going well, you need to adjust, but I was left wondering why the fish were either, not on the rocks, or on the rocks, but not interested in my shaky head. Since Jeff and I caught the majority of our fish relating to ditches I abandoned the rocks in favor of the ditch bite. The ditch bite can be frustrating and sometimes you have to spend some time shopping the ditches but when you find the right ones you can go back for days and the ditch will still produce. Such was my case this week. I didn’t have many successful ditches to draw from this week but the ones that I found successful, gave up fish every day this week. It might be a “one and done” ditch but I could circle around, coming back a few hours later and there would be another fish to take the place of the one before. It’s a “right place, right time” scenario in ditch fishing but one thing that can dip the odds in your favor is the presence of loons and diving birds. I pulled into a pocket with a small ditch on Tuesday afternoon and two loons were working in 10-15 feet of towards the back. Sometimes these loons will get the bass moving around by stirring up the bait and a Damiki rig with a 2.8 Keitech is my choice to cast around the areas of working loons. I like to steer clear of casting into the loons but working the swimbait around the outer fringes of the working loons can produce a good bass or two. On Tuesday afternoon it worked well out on the end of a dock, where the loons were working, and the ditch met the end of the dock. Here are back-to-back 4+ spots on a Trixster Damiki head.

On Wednesday I didn’t spend a lot of time on the water and it was a slow day. I was still able to put a few in the boat on the Damiki.

We recorded our fourth podcast and celebrated Jimmy Sanders birthday Wednesday even. Here’s a link to view Friday Fish Fry #4.

Here’s the difference between a 5lb fish and a 2.14-ounce fish, both on the 3/8-ounce Spot Choker head with a 2.8 Keitech. One caught early in the morning and one later in the day.

Yesterday morning I was back at it and easing up on my lucky ditch when I saw it, something that doesn’t occur often but when it does, the stripers and/or bass are nearby in big numbers. It’s the presence of fish poop. I see it every year, usually during this time of the winter but not limited to this time of year, it’s just more prevalent this time of year. You can’t mistake it, it’s just splotches of brown, wet poop looking liquid with a backdrop of green water. Usually, it’s visible when there is little to no wind, as the wind and waves tend to break up the poop splotches rather quickly. Looking for or seeing fish poop dates back to my days of running the marsh for redfish 30 years ago. Even redfish poop indiscriminately while feeding and finding the poop in the marsh meant finding the redfish.

After seeing the poop splotches scattered around amongst the floating pine needles, and the direction of the light breeze from the west, I triangulated that the poop was coming from a nearby point, so I set my sights on the end of the point with my Spot Choker swimbait rig. My first cast produced a nice striper and during the fight I looked down at the graph and it was like spaghetti underneath the boat. Stripers were everywhere, and I thought to myself that the poop mystery was solved. If there’s a moral to the story folks, “where there’s poop on the surface, there are fish feeding or fish that just fed in the area. Here’s a video and a picture of the striper I caught with the help of the poop.

After the fight and subsequent release of the striper, the whole ditch cleared out and the stripers were gone so I moved on. I continued to catch a few fish here and there on the little swimbait but I wanted to switch over to a spot choker underspin and drag a few areas with that, mostly the ends of points in deep water and the center of ditches in shallow water. At one point early in the afternoon I ran into Jimmy Sanders, and I spot locked near a deep point I was fishing while we talked. I like to multi-task so while talking with Jimmy I was simultaneously dragging my underspin down the side of the point from 30-40 feet. That has been my deep-water target depth and where most of my fish had come from this week. As we were talking, I felt my underspin stop and pull back and I quickly recognized that I was in a game of tug of war with a nice bass. Jimmy once again was my luck charm and I like visiting with Jimmy out on the water because our visit usually results in me catching a nice fish lately. Here’s a picture of the fish and the bait used.

All in all, it was a pretty good week and I’m glad to be back on the water. The lake level is less than a foot below full pool and the corps is only generating for a couple hours a day if that much. The water is still stained back here in the back of the creek and the water temps on the surface in the creek was 48-49 early and 51-52 by late afternoon.