[Neilslure]

I made my first trip to Jordan for 2015 today. Got a bit of a late start putting in at Ebenezer around 8:30, parking lot had alot of trailers that appeared to be duck hunters and a few crappie fishermen around the bridge. Water is still a little high and a little dirty, which usually makes for a tough day for me in the colder months so I didnt have real high expectations. I started out chunking the ole diving plug and covering water about 45 minutes later I am relieved when my rod bows over and I feel a fish, a decent one about 3 lbs... skunk is gone, decent start to the new year at Jordan. I am pretty close to 2 cuts where I have caught them in cold high water conditions before so I decide to go give them a whirl flipping and throwing a spinnerbait. Not a bite. In one of the cuts, there was a PVC pipe structure that has been on the bank for quite some time... I decided to give it a new home. I fished the mouth of the cut while I thought of places I could drop the attractor. I caught a 14" and a dink on a crankbait while I was thinking. I carried the structure to a point and searched with my electronics for the perfect location, dropped it, waypointed it, and fished it to establish triangulation landmarks. Went back to fishing and caught 3 more cranking, a 15", a 3.5 lber and 5-6 lber over the next few hours, all three of them engulfed my plug and gave a good pull.

Late in the day, I made a long cast in front of the boat, went about 5 cranks and felt my rod load up breifly and line went slack. I been down this road before and quickly realized what was going on. I crank for all I am worth waiting to feel pressure but never felt it until my line was about right at my feet, I felt the fish for a split second and he let go. I called that fish Forrest Gump, he grabbed my plug and just kept ruuuuunning. This fish was far from the sluggish winter fish stereotype.

For a day I wasnt expecting much out of, it turned out to be pretty good.

 

[fishdoctor]

Good report! sounds like ya gettin better at the cold, dirty water deal! thats the hardest conditions I fish under, still learnin tho...

 

[spidey]

The ones I caught this year so far have been fighters sure the initial grab feels like a snag but they are off to the races and swallowing the bait

 

[Abert43]

Nice job getting some nice bass!

 

[Neilslure]

Good report! sounds like ya gettin better at the cold, dirty water deal! thats the hardest conditions I fish under, still learnin tho...

I can catch them good in cold water and catch them good in high water at Jordan, combine the two and it gets real tough, espcially if the level is rising. Kerr on the other hand, those fish dont care, they stay on the typical winter patterns. I have whacked them at 306+ several times and on a day when the water came up a foot between the time I put in and took out.

 

[zhintegra]

what kinda crankbait? where at on jordan? i went two weeks ago and the water by stinking creek was chocolate milk lol.. nice catch! seems like a good day at jordan. - Tight lines

 

[TarheelFishing88]

Cold and Muddy are the toughest conditions for me too. Great job figuring them out! I need to get better at fishing deeper water. >15 ft and I feel lost.

 

[SurfRider]

Cold and Muddy are the toughest conditions for me too. Great job figuring them out! I need to get better at fishing deeper water. >15 ft and I feel lost.

I definitely know that feeling. I still don't feel confident with standard cranks past about 10 feet , but Belews has forced me to learn to be willing to probe the deeper reaches at times since most of the season I'm fishing 6 to 10 feet or deeper, usually more like 15 o 20ft, sometimes down to 35ft. Lipless cranks are a good option since you can count them down to whatever depth you want to work and twitch-and-fall the retrieve. Soft plastics and jigs work too, if you are on structure that doesn't require covering a lot of water. I do best with that approach on steep-drop banks where I'm catching fish in 15 to 25 feet of water but only within a cast length of the shoreline. Cast to the bank and let it fall till it settles, lift the rod tip and let it fall till it settles again... sometimes I have to let line out to keep it going down and not swinging out away from slope.

For longer sloping points, or lately for points that come out like a flat and then abruptly drop off to the channel (I have done well with that setup at Badin the last couple trips), I like parking over the shallower part, casting out into deep, and work a Carolina rig back to me ... what I call "up-sloping" a point or drop. Keeps the bait in contact with the structure (usually doing this with rocky drops and channel edges). The C-rig is nice since you can put a heavy weight on it to get long casts and get it deep but the fish when it picks up the bait doesn't have to pick up the weight like it does with a jig. Course, heavier jigs never seemed to stop them from picking it up, so I guess that doesn't matter. If you're parked over fish on sonar, a drop shot is a good option as well.

 

[sundrop]

I like a C rig because you can use more weight to get it down but still have a lot of bait action from as little as a twitch.. bait has more room to move, bounce and/or flutter and can be controlled by the length of your leader from the weight.

 

[Neilslure]

what kinda crankbait? where at on jordan? i went two weeks ago and the water by stinking creek was chocolate milk lol.. nice catch! seems like a good day at jordan. - Tight lines

Anytime there is alot of rain in a short time in the Jordan Lake watershed (slightly north and far west of the lake), the Haw River part of the lake turns to mud pretty easily. Those fish are used to living in dirty water so they can be caught if its not too bad. If I can look down and see my trolling motor prop its clean enough. Most of the plugs I throw cover the 4-10 ft range.

 

[gsafriet]

Hey man...I was out there too on Saturday and caught a few on drop shot all in 15+ foot of water. How deep were you crankin? Also what color?

 

[riverrat1]

Was there Sunday, at least until I got soaking wet. We caught several keepers up the river. I mean way up the river!!!

 

[TarheelFishing88]

I definitely know that feeling. I still don't feel confident with standard cranks past about 10 feet , but Belews has forced me to learn to be willing to probe the deeper reaches at times since most of the season I'm fishing 6 to 10 feet or deeper, usually more like 15 o 20ft, sometimes down to 35ft. Lipless cranks are a good option since you can count them down to whatever depth you want to work and twitch-and-fall the retrieve. Soft plastics and jigs work too, if you are on structure that doesn't require covering a lot of water. I do best with that approach on steep-drop banks where I'm catching fish in 15 to 25 feet of water but only within a cast length of the shoreline. Cast to the bank and let it fall till it settles, lift the rod tip and let it fall till it settles again... sometimes I have to let line out to keep it going down and not swinging out away from slope.

For longer sloping points, or lately for points that come out like a flat and then abruptly drop off to the channel (I have done well with that setup at Badin the last couple trips), I like parking over the shallower part, casting out into deep, and work a Carolina rig back to me ... what I call "up-sloping" a point or drop. Keeps the bait in contact with the structure (usually doing this with rocky drops and channel edges). The C-rig is nice since you can put a heavy weight on it to get long casts and get it deep but the fish when it picks up the bait doesn't have to pick up the weight like it does with a jig. Course, heavier jigs never seemed to stop them from picking it up, so I guess that doesn't matter. If you're parked over fish on sonar, a drop shot is a good option as well.

Great tips there. Thanks a lot for the reply. I'll try some of those techniques and see if it helps. I've been trying to figure out winter fishing at Falls lake lately, and I think some of those techniques would be applicable.

 

[SurfRider]

Great tips there. Thanks a lot for the reply. I'll try some of those techniques and see if it helps. I've been trying to figure out winter fishing at Falls lake lately, and I think some of those techniques would be applicable.

I don't know Falls, but the places where I have found bass in the cold months in shallower water have been in places that were very close to deeper water, and I don't have to see fish on the sonar but I do feel more confident if I have seen bait nearby. I use the Navionics app on my phone to look for steeper banks and points. Really steep drops are usually rocky, and rock seems to be a good cover type for me in the Winter. Good luck!