Fishing Winter Tournaments

Most BassFans can't get enough. Cold weather? Snow? No problem. The bass still have to eat, right?

The pros are the same way, and even though it's the off-season now, some look for local competition. But they know that because fish are less active in winter, catching bass this time of year requires a different approach, especially in tournaments.

"It's all mental in the wintertime," says CITGO pro Gerald Swindle. "That's the thing you have to realize about late fall and early winter fishing.

"Sometimes I have to sit at home and make myself think it out: I'm going to slow down, I'm going to slow down, I'm going to slow down. The fish are as cold as you are this time of the year so it's not a matter of what the best lure is. It's who can make himself slow down and match the fish's metabolism.

"When you're out there freeing to death, he's cold too," Swindle says. "If you're trying to stay warm, you might be fishing a different speed than the lake allows you to."

But slowing down can be tough "when you're a power fisherman and you like to move around a lot," he notes. To make sure he slows down and doesn't speed up without realizing it, Swindle does things like keeping his trolling motor running at no more than 20 percent.

Tournaments: Don't Panic

When it comes to fishing cold-weather tournaments, "the worst thing you can do is panic," Swindle says. "So many guys start at 6:30 or 7:00, and by 10:00 have no fish. Then they say, 'Oh boy, it's over now' and start running around.

"You can't do that in winter. Ninety percent of time the time it's an afternoon bite so you have to pace yourself. Don't burn through all of your areas in the first 2-3 hours.

"If you caught them at 3:00 in the afternoon in practice, you can go back there and catch them at the same time in the tournament even if that spot is dead in the morning. You have to stay focused and realize that. You can't base your whole tournament around the first 3-4 stops."

Morning Bite = Luck Bite

In cold weather, the morning bite is basically "a luck bite," Swindle says. At that time he fishes "even slower. I'll use light line and a small worm or jig, or tie on a gigantic spinnerbait and crawl it along structure to try to trigger a bite."

Specifically, he uses 6-pound P-Line and a Zoom Finesse Worm (watermelon or green pumpkin), particularly for spotted bass and smallmouths. For largemouths he prefers a 1/4-ounce Arkie jig (brown) with a green-pumpkin Zoom Tiny Chunk, fished on 10-pound P-Line.

Afternoon: Crankbaits

Swindle's favorite afternoon bait for old-water fishing is a tight-wobbling crankbait, though it can't have too much vibration. His preferred bait is a Lucky Craft Pro Tune Series Flat CB MR (MR stands for "medium-runner"). "I like shad colors in the winter," he says, meaning shad or plain white. "Once it starts getting cold, the bait lose a lot of their color and become silvery or white."

Other afternoon techniques he'll pull out are jerkbaits and spinnerbaits. Once the water warms a little he might fish a spinnerbait a little faster -- "crawling it, but not slow-rolling it."

Re: jerkbaits, he says: "Jerk it down and let it sit. They'll come get it. Sometimes you have to let it sit there 10-15 seconds, which is hard but you have to do it." His favorite jerkbait is a Lucky Craft Pointer 78, again in shad or shell white color.

All About Presentation

When it comes to winter fishing, "just remember that you have to match the same mood the fish are in," Swindle says. "You're both cold. You have to slow down.

"It's not all about the bait," he adds. "They'll bite anything in winter most of the time. The most important thing in winter is presentation."