when does it shut down

the fishing within the past week has dove, but I haven't been skunked yet , water levels are up and the temp is going down , so I'm assuming that the water level and the temp is slowing things down .

when is the season over ? and can a guy continue to catch the odd bass over the winter months or is the time nearing to shut er down and go toward chasing the large cutties an bows that fall has to offer ?

you can catch year round ive got bass in december and january

iv even seen bas caught on top water baits in novemebr you jsut need to slow things down and fish deeper

thanks
I've been reading up on it and everyone says the same , winter can be productive with sloooow gear , I was reading about using mepps spinners in cold conditions as well , they figure its a a lure that will piss off the fish enough that they'll strike , I've used them plenty for pike and walleye and have found them to be quite productive under the right conditions . hopefully they still uphold the quality they were 20 some odd years ago , most spinners I find are line tangling trash (even with 50 swivels)
chances are I'll stick with my rapala's but just get some that sink , I've tried a lot of things with good success but i love my raps

any bass in the dewdney slough ?

not to sure about dewndey slough

also for winter fishing try a darter jig head with a white grub and just bounce it along the bottom

I was just looking at some on ebay , there's some nice gear on there , i was looking at some frog baits which look deadly http://cgi.ebay.com/20xFishing-Soft-Plastic-Swimbait-Frog-Lure-Bass-Tack-Fb-/140450373182?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20b37e9e3e
I've got some some pretty decent toys off ebay , loads of rapala types (import) from 3-6 inches that have been pretty productive , for the most part I bought them for trouting

Hey, they fish Duck lake thru the hard water in winter. That area can get seriously cold!!!! But the bass still bite rattle-traps thru the ice!!
I've caught lots of fall bass, but it's usually a single pattern that works rather than several patterns with degrees of success. It's like they're locked in on 1 prey/action/and area!!
My fave for the Creston area lakes and sloughs, is a shad rap (shallow) and twitch the heck out of it(crank it down and then start the twitch/jerk action) or a natural coloured spinnerbait slow rolled 3-5 inches under the surface, making contact with any structure!!

Quin

it's nice to know it doesn't shut down , i fell under the impression a while back that they shut down . I figured they have to eat thru the winter but wasn't sure how eager they'd be . I've been fishing every opportunity I can get for the past two months and I've noticed a huge change within this past week , slow retrieves is what has been working , the problem will be in conditioning myself to slowing things down that much more . I'm generally aggressive in the way that I fish

i say an end of october fun fish at the slouh is deffinatly i order what do you guys think

I've caught bass from 1lb - 5 lb on jerkbaits in winter time temperature around 0C. didn't have to slow the bait. What I learned is harder jerk then longer pause, then another big jerk... longer stop and harder go is one way to catch bass in cold water.

i did a fair bit of reading on winter bassin last night and it sounds like there are a number of options for getting decent fishing , its going to be a bit more strategic but I like a challenge and my level of confidence doesn't fall short when it comes to catching fish , by the looks of it my fall trouting may not be happening this year


Andy , which slough are you wanting to have a fish ?


.

katzie

if its on a weekend then me an my boy will most likely be there

I will go to catch some carp. LOL...

I know most of you guys are on the Mainland and are targeting largies, but the winter smallie action on the Island is hard to beat. As long as there is no ice on Quennell Lake (near Nanaimo) the action is good all winter. If there is ice on Quennell, then Elk Lake in Victoria can give you fairly steady action and bigger bass.

For me in the winter, there are only 3 techniques that I use:
1/ Tube jig (black w/red flake or smoke w/purple flake on a 1/4 oz tube jig).
2/ Drop-shot rig (the colder the water, the shorter the dropper length, usually 6-8", and using a smoke w/purple flake grub).
3/ Shaky head jig (1/4 oz BPS XPS finesse screw-lock football jig, with a 4" baby bass senko imitation).

All three I fish PAINFULLY slow. Chances are good that if you fished with me and were trying to fish slow, you'd still be making 2-3 casts to my one, that's how slow I fish. But, it pays off big time!

Chad

Thanks Chad.

I will definitely try to fish those lakes on the island this winter.

Here is a vid of fishing low water temperature. I've been fishing in the same spot and kinda same condition. ( even colder )...