Warm Water or Wind Blown Bait Chasing This Cold Snap?

[Stinkbait]

Water was 60-61 last week. Winchester is supposed to be 30 degrees early morning with a freeze warning. I see the water temp dropping a lot from last week. This would make me seek out the areas of the lake with the most sun saturation warming the water on S facing coves or N side of the lake.

Now the flip side of this scenario is we got wind out of the N at 2-4 mph all night into the morning where it then changes to out of the NE. Surely this will move some bait to the S side of the lake or N facing coves.
Even if you see no snowy egrets, blue herins, terns or diving bait birds at o'dark doesn't mean it ain't going to get crazy wide by 0900.

Choose your own adventure. How do you play?

[Stinkbait]

The wind changed a bit from earlier forecasts but is still predominantly out of the N over night.

[Matt_Magnone]

Not sure if your post was more of a question or just going over your game plan, but based on your criteria I would run Main lake and Secondary points associated with a channel or creek drain and fish whatever key boulder or structure on the deepest edge. As the sun peaks and wind shifts, I would hunt down shallower South West, East facing, rocky banks. Fish will be shallower seeking out the warmth but the wind will generate current. Highs today are supposed to be in the mid 60's. About that time to break out the jerkbait and hammer the walls!

[Stinkbait]

Just a question to throw out there and a potential game plan.
The water has been so stinking clear, you need wind or some mucked up water to do well.....or........stay way off some fish you found and let the wind push you towards them.

I saw you mentioned dirty water in a previous post, but I could not find any the following week. Some micro balls of algae floating around is all, which is hardly dirty water.

[Matt_Magnone]

I've been out a couple times in the past few weeks. Each trip we found off colored water with less than 5' visibility primarily mid lake. I've been running Antenna Point, North Bathroom Cove and a few points West of North Bathroom. Wind probably stirred the water up the day previous to the trips I was there. I know you've been hitting the lake hard so you would be a better judge than me right now.

[Stinkbait]

You been fishing afternoons, cause the morning have been tough for me.

[Matt_Magnone]

You been fishing afternoons, cause the morning have been tough for me.

Actually my mornings have been better than my afternoons. The jig bite in the morning has been good for a couple bites, then it seems to shift to the texas rig. The afternoon bite on the days I've fished hasn't been all that good. Normally it's hard pressed to get the reaction bait or swimbait out of my hands, but I've put it away for a while getting back into the finesse and bottom bait groove.

I've been on Skinner the last week and a half messing around but will be back on DVL pretty quick. Just doing my rounds right now :Big Grin:

[NFCD I]

Actually my mornings have been better than my afternoons. The jig bite in the morning has been good for a couple bites, then it seems to shift to the texas rig. The afternoon bite on the days I've fished hasn't been all that good. Normally it's hard pressed to get the reaction bait or swimbait out of my hands, but I've put it away for a while getting back into the finesse and bottom bait groove.

I've been on Skinner the last week and a half messing around but will be back on DVL pretty quick. Just doing my rounds right now :Big Grin:

Matt, How about throwing a bone out to us Skinner guy's. It's been pretty tough for the last couple of months. Are you doing any good?

[Matt_Magnone]

Matt, How about throwing a bone out to us Skinner guy's. It's been pretty tough for the last couple of months. Are you doing any good?


Sorry I'm not on this site as much as I used to be. Too much other stuff going on lately.

Needless to say Skinner has and will always be one of my favorite lakes. It's tough at times and excellent at others.

Spent the majority of the year on the ocean but needed to get the bass boat back on the water. Being that Perris has been a little fickle and me living 5 minutes down the road from Skinner I've been soaking it there.

Bass bite has been slow to fair but it's definitely biting. I'm finding most of my fish on outside structure in 20-40' of water. I'm targeting "random" type stuff. Just little irregularities on the bottom. One thing I do different out there when metering is more or less looking at cover/structure vs. looking for arcs on the graph. I'm fishing a lot of stuff we would normally call void of all life. Deep fish at Skinner tend to be mud bellied so finding them on the graph can sometimes be a useless venture. On every fish finder there's 1-1.5' of dead zone that the transducer will not pick up. Now think about how many 1-4 pound bass it would take to fill 1-1.5'. Technology is rad, but it can sure mess with our heads when we're fiending to find a fish.

I've been living with the 4" spinning rod in my hand fishing mainly darter heads and spins. On the warmer days fish have been nudging up into the Tule lines and I've been able to pick them on the Thin Senko but for the most part I've been deeper. Water has been sticking around that 54-56 degree zone but random days I saw it get higher so generally it's "low and slow" fishing although with the water temp dropping, there should be some killer reaction bait fishing getting ready to happen.

This year I made it a goal not to pick up the swimbait sticks like I normally do. It's been more traditional fishing for me.

Hope this helps :)
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