Winter Time Bassinˇ¦?
by Dennis Udlinek
I fondly remember one brisk January morning as my partner and I were whistling down the lake. I sat with my head down trying to keep warm when I heard a familiar sound skimming underneath the boat. It was a sound I had heard before. I immediately sat up hollering "woe"! just as Bill throttled back his Black Max we noticed something was wrong with our cold but otherwise serene trek down the lake. What we encountered on the seemingly placid surface of the tranquil lake was a thin sheet of ice. It was just enough to put a chill running through my already shivering bones. As it turned out, there was only a thin layer of ice partially covering a small surface of the lake and we were able to cautiously continue around it and on to our favorite fishing spot. By ten o'clock the ice had all melted, and we settled in for some winter time bassin'.
It was only a matter of casts before we hooked our first fish, a crappie. Thatˇ¦s right! It seemed what we had found beneath the boat with our fish locator was a large school of crappie, and a day of glorious fishin' had begun. Before early afternoon passed, we caught 65 respectable crappie, with some fish up to 11 and 12 inches in length. Some observers from the bank were not that impressed, mostly because they were unable to throw their choice lures out to where the crappie were lying. We found two schools suspended over 40 feet of water. They were staying anywhere from 15 to 30 feet in depth. The crappie seemed to be quite hungry even though when unhooked they were ice cold to the touch.
As for winter time bass fishing, we couldnˇ¦t stop pulling in nice crappie long enough to see if there were any wiry smallmouth in the area!