Jig a Spoon for Winter Fishing Action

Without much question, a jigging spoon ranks one of the best lures made for winter fishing, and it produces pretty much every kind of fish that ever eats shad or herring. Find a good group of baitfish near the bottom in a  wintering area, and you're apt to catch white bass, stripers, bass, catfish and more. A simple hand-poured and painted white spoon is one of Gary Dollahon's mainstay lures during the winter, and he catches pretty much everything that swims on his spoons. Dollahon looks for areas near the mouths of major creeks, where hard bends create wind protection from multiple directions and form holes that offer the baitfish and the gamefish a nice range of depths to use. The fish can be down in the channels or up on the structure, so he normally does quite a bit of looking with his electronics and drops a marker buoy before he begins fishing. Dollahon also mixes up his presentations for different situations. The video below demonstrates a "shaking" strategy that Dollahon finds especial;y productive when the water turns extra cold.

Thursday Tips -- Get Vertical

One challenge brought by winter is that game fish of various sorts use deeper water overall than they do during the spring or the fall, and often the best fish-holding spots are separated from any visible casting targets. The good news is that once you find deeper fish, you can position a boat directly over them and drop baits right in front of their noses. Whether the fish are relating to structure, baitfish or both, vertical presentations allow you to be extremely precise, to keep your lure in the strike zone all the time and to use your electronics to watch the fish you are targeting.

Creek-bend holes in the lower ends of a reservoir's major arms tend to hold fish of various sorts during the winter. The fish might not be down in deepest part of a hole, but the range of depths available and protection against wind from multiple directions make hard bends in a channel very attractive to baitfish and gamefish alike. Pick a big bend in a creek and spend some time searching the areas with your graph, looking down in the hole, over slopes and atop adjacent flats or points for bait schools and for larger marks that might indicate game fish. Toss a marker buoy or two over the most interesting areas and then position the boat directly over the fish.

Specific bait and rig choices vary according to the species and size of fish that call a particular body of water home. However, most of the best baits for this style of fishing imitate shad effectively. Good options include a white or chrome jigging spoon and a small, shad-style soft-plastic bait such as a Bobby Garland Baby Shad.

Part of the fun of this approach is that any fish that bites could be a panfish, a largemouth or a jumbo striper or catfish.