The Ice Edge Pattern

Given yesterday's low of 9, a current temperature of 18 and more of the same forecast for the rest of this week, I can't help thinking back on a crazy cold day of fishing in the South Carolina Upcountry and wondering if the "ice edge" pattern has developed on any local streams.

It was a little less than the three years ago on the same morning that the Bassmaster Classic launch was delayed on Lake Hartwell because boats were frozen to trailers, and I was fishing the delayed harvest section of Chauga River with Bruce Stanton, who was visiting from Arkansas for some Classic-related business.

We both saw more ice than we'd ever before seen on a trout stream in the Deep South on that day, and that ice actually turned out to be the key to the day's pattern. Over time, Bruce and I figured out that the trout were sitting under the edge of the ice, right on the bottom, and feeding in the adjacent current. Once we solved the pattern, we did surprisingly well that day by casting Watsit Grubs and Fuzz-E Grubs upstream and close to the ice and drifting or hopping them along the bottom, parallel to the edge of the ice. The water was clear enough that we saw several trout come out from under the ice to grab out lures.

One added challenge that day was keeping ice off our lures. I've often dealt with ice in rod eyes and even on reels, but the air was cold enough that lures were icing up between casts, especially if we moved a bit between casts. The ice hampered the appearance and action of our lures, but even more importantly, it sometimes covered hooking points! I'm almost certain that both of us missed a couple of fish that day because of iced over hooking points.

I am admittedly curious what kinds of ice lines have formed on local streams this week and whether fish are using them, but I might not be quite curious enough to go find out first hand. Next week I supposed to be warmer!

Rebel Critter Two Step

While stream fishing in the Ouachita Mountains last week, Bruce Stanton and I mostly used two-pronged lure presentations, making the most of the functionality of Rebel Crawfish and Crickhoppers. Both lures float naturally and dive a couple of feet and wobble when you pull them through the water.

Most of the smallmouths, spots and assorted panfish in Mountain Fork and the Ouachita River were close to shoreline cover and looking up, so we would cast toward the bank, let the bait settle for just a moment and then twitch it and pause it a few times to make it dance on top. Often a fish would blast the lure on the top. If it didn't, we'd then move to step two, which involved reeling the lure back to engage it's subsurface swim.

On that particular trip, if we had only used the lures as crankbaits, by casting and immediately reeling them back, we'd have probably missed out on 80 percent of the fish we caught. Other days, the opposite would be the case. Often, strikes occur about evenly with both approaches. Experiment, and the fish will let you know.

The cool thing is that you don't have to choose. Just as we mostly did, you can incorporate topwater fishing and cranking into every cast.