Woo’s Corner, A Little Fishing and a Little Maintenance

WOO’S CORNER

BY WOO DAVES

Another year gone and way too fast. Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and looking forward to a great 2018. I’m also hoping you had an awesome fishing year in 2017. I saw a lot of nice pictures of bass on face book this year.

Here it is January and snow on ground in a lot of places making fishing tough and no fun. Good time to take a vacation and visit southern Florida, South Texas or somewhere like the Delta in California. Now if I had one choice it would be Lake Okeechobee in Florida. Several reasons I like the Big O are plenty of bass with lots of big ones. No matter how the wind blows you can drive around the lake and put your Nitro in at many different ramps and get out of the wind. Another great deal is the bass are almost always shallow.

If you can’t travel or get away, this is what I call the maintenance month. Go over your trailer, Z-20 boat and tackle making preparations for the upcoming season. Check lights and grease in hubs on trailer as this can prevent you sitting on the side of the road. Take everything out of your boat and reorganize it, so not only will it be neat, but you will know where things are saving you time. Check the lower unit on your Mercury make sure no water is in it and change grease. Check prop for nicks and file out if you find any. Don’t be scared to use a coat of wax on your boat. This maintenance you take care of now, will pay big dividends in the long run!

If you get a warming spell and you have fishing fever and just have to go fishing, the first thing I want you to do is put a life vest or inflatable vest on. The air may be warm, but the water temperature is cold and if you happen to fall in, hypothermia is a bad thing. I’ve seen this happen too many times so be prepared, also put in a change of clothes, as I want you to fish until your 95 years old.

There are fish to be caught all year long, but the cold weather doesn’t make it fun. I rely 110% on my Raymarine hybrid touch screen ES12 to locate bait. Remember bait equals Bass. Getting them to bite can sometimes be the hard part. I’m going to go to a bait I can keep in front of them for a period of time as very seldom are they going to chase anything. Drop shot a Zoom Finesse worm or a Zoom Fish Doctor. I also like to use a Zoom Fat Albert grub fished slowly on a light jig head. A jig with a Zoom chunk, a jigging spoon, and last a suspending jerk bait which can be a good producer especially on clear water conditions.

We are going to be fishing extremely slow and then slow down a little more for good measure. These baits and tactics I mentioned are tops for cold water conditions. I will search for bait looking on long flat points, creek or river bends, any ledges. Seagulls can get you in the right area on a lot of lakes, Now I will go through the tactics I mentioned using lures that stay in front of the fish for a period of time. I’m going to start with drop shot or jig spoon most of the time.

Get over top of fish and work bait right in front of them. I use a 3/4 oz. Bass Pro Strata spoon, on Bass Pro Shops 17 lbs. fluorocarbon line with a Johnny Morris 6’8” medium action rod. The spoon I will modify by putting bigger O rings on each end, a Mustad Triple grip hook, and a ball bearing swivel on front of spoon. Simply go over bait with your MotorGuide trolling motor and let spoon to bottom. Now the key is not to rip spoon up but to use a gradual rise of about 14 inches and drop back feeling it the way down. The

A LITTLE FISHING AND A LITTLE MAINTENANCE

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