(Editor's note: "Catching Bass with Dustin Wilks" airs three times per week on Sportsman Channel – 9:30 a.m. ET Friday, 4:30 p.m. Sunday and 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. He provides BassFans with supplemental information about each episode in these weekly submissions.)
In almost every year that I can remember since I was a kid, there is a week or two warmer weather in the middle of winter in the mid-South that pushes the bait and bass shallow. I’m not talking 3 feet shallow, I’m talking trolling-motor-kicking-up-dirt shallow. I can remember having so much fun almost every year as long as I’ve been fishing during these warm snaps in winter.
This is the exact scenario I hit on this week’s tv show, and oh, it was so much fun!
I knew before I even started the day that it was going to be a slugfest. The temperature had been up into the mid-70s for over a week with some warm rain mixed in. While I was driving to the lake I took a photo of the temperature on my truck display that showed 64 degrees at 6 a.m. in the dark. I was smiling.
The boat went in and the water temp had climbed all the way to 62 and I was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. Now it does not have to be that warm to trigger this bite, but it helps – we were still 2 months away from the traditional time that fish spawn in the Carolinas
My first thought – buzzbait! Yes, buzzbait in January. I’ve long fished a buzzbait way earlier than conventional wisdom would dictate, but on this day there was no other thought in my head.
So I immediately got confirmation and start sticking some pigs on the buzzbait in some old, dead weeds. I decided a frog might be good to mix in, so I tied on a Culprit Incredi-Frog and with the two baits I was just crushing them. Frog inside the weeds and buzzbait on the edge.
The whole key to finding a good area is to find a place that is shallow to begin with. Bass in 40 feet of water have no idea it has gotten warm shallow; since cold water sinks, it will stay the same down deep. So ignore all areas of the lake that are super-deep and focus on shallow bays and shallower creeks. Some fish will be shallow there, but not what we are looking for here.
I rig the frog with a double hook and a little lead on the shank. The weight allows it to land with the hooks pointing up and away from the weeds. I always fish this this on Yo-Zuri Super Braid in 50- or 65-pound test. The braid is key for good hooksets and pulling fish out of slop. With the buzzbait I usually go for fluorocarbon, but I’ve been experimenting with braid there as well. I’ve always had good success with 16-pound fluorocarbon with buzzbaits, but on this day I missed more than normal until I switched to a heavier rod.
There are two basic designs of frogs – what I call “reeling frogs" and solid plastic frogs. There are boot-tail models that have two legs with swimbait-style boots on the end and others have cut tails that sputter like buzzing worms. The boot-tail models are the more aggressive ones and call fish from farther away. The cut-tail ones have a place, of course, if fish want something more subtle, but on this day I wanted aggressive so I chose the Culprit Incredi-Frog.
So away I went, hopping shallow bays and creeks with the buzzbait and frog, catching impressive size fish that you will have to tune in to watch. I was shallow – really, really shallow in old, dead grass.
Bass can get quite comfortable in water way shallower than you think if there is a little cover. The key is being able to get in there. My boat was key, The Caymas CX 21. It floats incredibly shallow, as I touched on in the show. Lots of people believe small boats are best for shallow water, but a wider, longer boat will actually float higher. The hull design specifically combined with the sponsons has this boat floating through stuff I could only hope for in a jonboat of the past. If my trolling motor will spin, this boat will float. It is amazing.
As the morning went on, I was still catching them well on the frog and buzzbait when I noticed a single shad flip out away from the weeds. I picked up a little crankbait, fired over there, and bam! There were several good ones. I knew the front was coming, so I caught a few, marked that spot, and went on with the buzzbait. Once the front arrived, it was over for the buzzbait and frog with a notable cool north breeze, so I returned to the crankbait spot.
My crankbait place was all of about a foot or foot and a half deep with one hard spot that was probably some old roots of a stump, holding some rocks above the silt. This was probably a stopping point for bass that move even shallower, they looked different than the buzzbait and frog fish, being whiter and smaller, but still good fish. I believe some of those big girls were shallow all along, just biting good once it got warm. So I think there was a wave moving in, in addition to the resident hawgs.
The crankbait I was using was a Hardcore Shad Crank 1. It is not your typical looking crankbait. It has a bill that is rounded and wide combined with a long and slender-shaped body. It has been a secret weapon of mine since the early 2000s when I got my hands on some of the first ones brought in from Japan.
I fished this on a Falcon Lowrider 7’4’’ heavy-cover jig rod. It's a stout rod for crankbaits, but I love it, with a perfect bend to prevent hooks from ripping out, but all the backbone you need to bring big shallow fish away from heavy cover. It's also really good for bladed jigs.
So with this bait in hand, I continued the great day with a dozen or so more fish before my camera man and editor told me I had to stop because there was no way all these fish were getting on the show!
The lesson here is don’t let time of the year dictate where you fish. Use it as guide, but focus more on current conditions to keep you catching bass.
Please remember to keep Aaron Martens and family in your prayers.
