Well up here in Minnesota, we finally got out of a week, where we never reached above zero degrees Fahrenheit, had a day or two of weather that hovered around 30 degrees, so I took that as a cue to get some fishing done!!  My club member Dave Cindrich joined me for the day.  Early on, it was pretty cold, as it was about 20 degrees when we started fishing.  It was nice to have my new Akinetix beanie to keep my head nice & warm

You can see the rocks and the very clear water in this picture
The first spot we stopped at for about 15 minutes, not a single bite, so we quickly moved on.  The next area, was slow to get going but we did pluck 10 smallmouth from the area and had a couple more on.  I got one close to 4lbs and another over 3lbs there right before we left.  The first four fish came on tubes, 2 on a stupid tube rig and the other two on a rattling tube jig.  The next 6 came on a Fork Craw rigged on a shakey head (Picasso Shakedown & Buckeye Spot Remover heads).  We spent about 2 hours catching those 10 fish.

You know its cold when the fish have snow on their fins!!!
We then went scouting and spent about 45 minutes checking out some new areas without any luck.  Lastly we headed to a different stretch that had proven fruitful in the past.  It did not take long for both of us to hook up on fish in the next area.  Dave and I had at least one double here.  I caught most of these fish on a coffee tube with a regular 1/8oz tube jig, but the bigger fish came on a Watermelon Red Flake Chompers grub on a Chompers head.  The fish seemed to be biting closer to the bank here and occasionally we would see them swim by our feet.  I caught two more in this area that were between 3 & 4lbs.

Notice this one has a face full of Chompers Grub
All in all, I ended up with 21 or 22 smallies and probably 4 or 5 more that I had on for a bit.  Dave caught somewhere around 10 fish, and hooked into a couple big carp as well.  My best 5, would have probably weighed, right around 17lbs.  For guys that really do not care to drill holes to fish in the winter, this was a great outing!

Below I got some pictures of the baits and rigging methods used

(Top to Bottom) – Fork Craw on Shakedown, Chompers Grub, Coffee Tube

Check John Haynes’ & Josh Douglas’ blogs for their entries on there smallmouth trips as well.
This just proves what dedicated fanatic anglers will do to wet a line in unfrozen waters in the dead of winter!!

Rich
RichLindgren.com 
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