A chilly but good start to 2013

[bluebasser86]

Jon and I got the La Cygne today and fished from dark to dark I guess that makes it pretty obvious the fishing was pretty good the entire day. It was a balmy 11 degrees when we got on the water but I still caught a fish literally on my first cast of the day on a swimbait. Jon caught his first bass of the year pretty quickly on a football jig. It looked like he hooked a monster at first because it was in the current on a long cast but was still a pretty stout fish.

I lost a big fish on a shakyhead that was ripping drag and then caught a solid fish my next cast.

We caught several more bass at the outlet then decided to try for some whites and wipers on the flat north of the outlet. Not much going on, we doubled up on wipers that were about a pound apiece when a bunch of gulls started diving at the mouth of the river so we ran over to them. Had a little flurry of smaller wipers and then we doubled on nice wipers, Jon's was his PB wiper.


I had a baitfeeder with a freelined live shad in the rod holder that started slowly feeding out line and after a fight that wore out my forearm I netted this channel cat. The picture does it no justice but it was probably 10-12 pounds.

We worked up the lake and were about to dock the boat so we could get drinks that weren't frozen at the boathouse when I got another solid one right by the ramp on a jerkbait.

It was a really good day for a little bit of everything. We probably put 30-35 bass in the boat, a dozen to 15 wipers, several big whites, 2 catfish, 2 buffalo, and a carp. A shakyhead with a magnum finesse worm, a lucky craft or Excaliber jerkbait, swimbait, or rattletraps were the deal all day.

[Jrob78]

Way to kick off the new year! Nice going!

[lilmule]

Thats not cold slow bassin thats hot,but considering the way your dressed you can have it,my last time I got downright cold bibs and carharts ,long johns n helmet even oh yeah thermal gloves,wife thought I was going snowmobilin and we aint got no snow.

[carolina-rig-01]

Congratulations on a great day. Temperatures that cold are dang near impossible to block out of your head so you can focus on fishing. Nice job!

[WaffleJaw]

Starting off with a trifecta!!...Thats awesome!,great start!

[kennethdaysale]

11 degrees ? Yikes I think the only way I could manage to get a handle on my junk to take a leak in those temps would be to stick my thumb up my A$$ and holler SNAKE! What was the water temp?

[Bubba_Bruiser]

Firecrackers for the new year....Nice haul! Did you have any issues with guides freezing at those temps?

[bluebasser86]

Thanks fellas, it was a really good day to start out the year and it was Jon's birthday too so I think he had a good birthday as well. This lake is one of the warm water discharge lakes I fish during the winters that stays open all winter. The water at the ramp was 48, river was 52, in the outlet it was 60-64. Lots of challenges when you get out there in temps that cold, Kenneth named one of them, we usually go to the bank because it's a difficult process to go out of the boat when it's that cold and you have that much cloths on. The guides and reels icing is also really tough. We had to fish slower moving baits much of the morning because our guides and reels iced up so fast. The other problem is my boat is all aluminum and has no carpet so with all the steam rising off the water it turns into a skating rink.

[WatterBoy]

Nice fish, guys! Kudos to you for getting out there with it being that cold. I love to fish, but I think I draw the line when the air temps get below 40.

[keithdog]

Thats a great start to your year pal! I wish we still had open water around here. Can't wait till spring!