Some thoughts on winter fishing (long)

[Kelly Ripa]

I had the opportunity to do a little late fall/early winter fishing with a new friend last week in his sweet Ranger. It never fails to surprise me at the power of a spoon to ignite a bite. We had been fishing a little over an hour with one very small square bill fish for our efforts. My partner had apparently loaded bad line(old) onto 3-4 different outfits and was having issues with his power on his console graph also(something he had just fixed). As these kinds of issues tend to keep ones mind occupied instead of focused on fish he was starting to get overwhelmed when I took over the trolling motor while he was dealing with his demons for the day.

I have learned over the past experiences that spooning can be a timing thing and it has been my experience that it will fire up fish that are “not in the mood” and are cold and lethargic. While offering up suggestions and keeping the boat under control I noticed his front graph appeared to be under the influence of hallucinates. I brought him up front to show him what was wrong.

As we floated along the meter showed we were in 25 feet of water. I showed him this and then dropped my spoon down to where we could see it on the meter and I got it down to 25 feet and stopped it Waving the spoon so he could see it we agreed that my spoon was “on the bottom” at 25 feet. Then I free spooled down to where the bottom actually was( another 20 feet or more). So do you know why your meter shows 25 feet in 45 feet of water I asked ??? No, was the answer. It's because there is 20 feet of bait on the bottom here and your signal is getting lost once it makes contact with it.
We played with his sensitivity until I got three different colors of definition showing the bottom and the bait.

I let him go back to what he was doing and I started to spoon . The meter still only showed me a very uneven bottom and no fish but I know if I can make contact with a fish I won't really be needing that meter but can rely on the spoon to do it's magic. Of course I caught a fish (but lost it on the way up). I dropped straight down again and had another. This fish came straight to the boat so my partner went leaping for his new Hopkins spoon. My next fish was a 4 pound fish so I gave up the front seat and sat down to have breakfast only to have to abandon that idea after I watched him for a minute or two.

I have very definite opinions on this subject so I had him use my rod and spoon as he did not have a ¾ oz. spoon but a ½ oz. I never use a ½ oz. spoon as they are useless "in my opinion". I have caught fish from the surface down to 110 feet on a ¾ oz. Spoon. I change the hook out for a # 4 gami red round bend hook. I have a split ring on both ends of the bait and basically crash around on the bottom with a combination of sharp rips and just letting it lay on the bottom while I just tap or knock lightly on the bottom without raising the bait until I figure everybody saw and heard the bait and then go back to ripping the bait.

I explained to him that I don't need to see the fish on the meter I just need to find out how they want it for that day. You will only get bit 1% of the time on the upward rip as it is on the fall that you will get 99% of your strikes. You NEVER let the spoon free fall back to the bottom but instead at the apex of the rip you follow the bait down at it's speed back to the bottom with light tension. I get in the habit of making sure I KNOW Where the spoon is going to hit the bottom so if it stops 2 feet before the bottom I can react and set the hook.

I think a lot of fisherman should spend some time with these baits as they have kept my live well pumps running when all else has failed. These deep fish were always a target of mine when fishing for dough as I can count on them when the weather turns sour as the deep fish are less affected and can get you to the winners circle when all of the shallow fish patterns you have go cold. You need confidence to go at this all day long but in general if you have some time under your belt with spoons it can be some of your best fishing(numbers wise) of the whole year.

Eventually I had 4 fish off of a spot the size of a bathtub this day and taught my partner another valuable lesson for the day.......Release your spoon fish away from where you catch them not right on top of where you catch them as you can shut your bite off by returning them right there. I walk to the back of the boat and let them go just to get them further away from where ever I am catching them. Good luck on the water with this presentation as it should hold until February (pre spawn).

Ripa

[JL]

Thanks for the tips! Great info and thanks for sharing your knowledge!

[WRB]

Good to hear from you And sharing you extensive knowledge.
Tom

[Wrknap]

Even though it was a frustrating day on the water it’s always a great learning experience when fishing Casitas with RIP. I have allot to learn about that lake. Let alone my electrical abilities..
As RIP noted, I was excited to get back on the water. I worked most of the day before replacing my line, cleaning the boat. I was sure I had my fishfinder problems fixed, until I hit the water humbling…
Back to the drawing board, looking forward to the next trip.

[Isaac O]

Great information! Thank you for sharing.

[milehi]

I'm on a little mountain lake often howls in the winter, tying up to some of the long multiples & dropping a spoon in the slips, deep to shallow has caught a bunch of fish for me. I find fishing one alot of fun, don't know why more people don't do it

[Kelly Ripa]

You know I took the trouble to not name my partner so as to protect the innocent in case you didn't notice. I see some rain in the forecast and I'm doing some waxing etc. for a while so next week sometime....My Boat.
If you can't locate a 3/4 hopkins by then don't sweat it as they are like potato chips in my spoon box....

[pd]

Great report, but I’ll add that I’ve caught a ton of bass on 1/4 and 3/8 kastmasters. I only fish those, other than an occasional big flutter spoon. I think spoons are usually overlooked, so we can agree on that. It all depends on where and how you fish.

[Kelly Ripa]

Absolutlutely PD. It was Bob Measly that showed me the light back in 88'. He and Doug Chessmore would have beat everyone in an early January Western Bass Tournament with the 3/8 Kastmaster. For sliding back at a wall rather than blazing by nothing works better. Most unfortunate that the skies clouded up and the lake went up 10 feet in a week to turn all the prefishing to naught.

Rip

[Kelly Ripa]

Hmmm.... I got a lot of PM's on this so I wrote up about 3 pages typed on some of my insights into spoon fishing while answering the questions some of you had. I won't post it here but if you want a 10 minute read on the subject send me a PM and I will send it to you. Good luck and tight lines.

Rip

[ash]

bring the action ! ive learned more about spooning from your posts over the years then I can recall and there is always room for more. I am not as good as a teacher as you though as my partner just doesn't get it - IMHO spooning is punching over 50' water on a clear lake in the winter

[Kelly Ripa]

Let me start this by thanking all of the nutcase's that not only read this post but came back for more on the long read. I didn't want to post it online because it's just some of my rambling anecdotes, some of what I do with a few observations thrown in. I have had to keep throwing stuff hourly out of my in box as it boiled over my allotted storage . So Far the winner is Riley201dc as he went out the next day and scored a limit with a 3.15 Smallmouth. Thanks for everybody's input and it was a pleasure to meet so many nutcase's and get to know about the lakes they fish and their experiences. I hope we can have a nutCase event this summer like we did at Clear Lake many years ago. 3 tournaments over two days with a new partner at noon on the first day and a 2 fish weigh in each one. Lots of fun and then you can put faces on some of the folks you've been sharing with. A great forum when we are sharing.

Rip