(Editor's note: The following is the latest installment in a series of fishing tips presented by The Bass University. Check back each Friday for a new tip.)
Over the past year, Minnesota pro Seth Feider has become widely known as one of the best smallmouth anglers on the planet. Whether it’s a big natural lake like Mille Lacs, a river like the Upper Mississippi or a southern highland reservoir like Cherokee, he’s a threat to win any time brown fish are a factor – and his favorite time to chase them is when the water is cold.
“The fish get incredibly congregated,” he said, and when you figure out their locations you can “absolutely destroy them.” Even better, they use the same areas year after year after year.
His definition of “cold” is 60 degrees or less in the fall and 50 or less in the spring. In the north, he divides the late season into three distinct portions by water temperatures: early fall is 55-65, late fall is 45 to 55, and winter is anything below 45.
During the early fall, he relies on a wide variety of moving lures, including crankbaits, spinnerbaits, swimbaits, jerkbaits and hair jigs. Blade baits may work, but he said that they’re better in the later portion of the year. The one plastic that stands out from all the others is an Erie Darter, either by itself or on a football jig. He doesn’t know why, because it has “zero action,” but it’s deadly in cold water.
On the back of his spinnerbaits he’ll add a swimbait, and he said that it has the same effect as a horny toad on the back of a buzzbait – eliminating the need for a trailer hook because the strikes are so vicious. The swimbait he uses most often is a JDM Daiwa version (much like a Keitech Easy Swimmer), which he prefers because it has lots of action even on a super-slow retrieve. When he cranks, he uses one of two retrieves: either burning it or dragging it like “a really fast Carolina Rig.”
The late fall is his favorite big-fish time, and he notes that it’s when the fish get most congregated. The lake may be big, but “98 percent of it is dead.” This is when he pulls out a blade bait, which he said “fishes a lot like a Rat-L-Trap minus the sound.” He makes strong efforts not to overwork it, and as soon as he feels it vibrating on the upstroke, that’s when he drops his rod again.
He’ll also fish his “Feider Fly” hair jig in the late fall, but unlike the spring and summer when he winds it steadily, at this time of year he lets it pendulum and swing toward him on the retrieve, often hitting the bottom. When fish are suspended directly under the boat, often 5 to 10 feet off the bottom, he’ll turn to the Rapala Jigging Rap. He’s had his best success with it by holding the rod relatively still rather than jerking it aggressively.
In the winter, the swimbait bite tends to die and the blade bait becomes Feider’s No. 1 choice. When the water is at its coldest, he’s looking for areas on or near the main lake basin, with large boulders and high spots, along with sharp breaks. When he’s fishing especially deep (30 to 60 feet), he’ll often throw a 7/8-ounce slab spoon into the mix because it gets down fast and there are “always a number of dumb fish in every school.”
If you want to learn some of Feider's other cold-weather smallmouth techniques, as well as his opinions on how northern smallmouths change their diets at the 55-degree mark, check out his full video, available only by subscribing to The Bass University TV.
