Winter Plans and Christmas Ideas
by Steve
Welch
My long
fishing season of guiding is winding down. If not for the flood, this would
have been my busiest year in several years. I had tons of summer white bass
trips booked and really wasn’t done with my crappie trips when it hit.
Fifteen
inches of rain fell in ten days at just about the same time Iowa was getting
pelted, so the Mississippi River was already swollen. That meant the
unthinkable for me. The lake rose sixteen feet and stayed like that forever. It
is now mid-November and we have finally gotten back to summer pool.
The fish
just buried themselves down into the flooded willows and you couldn’t get bait
through them. Last time this happened, the willows just had six feet in them
and you could see the tops and we just poked baits in small openings and tore
them up. This time the willows were fourteen feet under the water.
I took the
high road and just told my clients that I wouldn’t take them on an expensive
boat ride because the fish just weren’t cooperating. All said and done, it cost
me about ten thousand dollars of earnings. Oh well, that is why guiding is my
part time job.
Well that
was the summer. This is winter and we are tearing up the crappie. I have a
fifteen-trip triple-limit streak going right now and we shouldn’t have to quit
fishing until mid-month or later. I’ve had trips in January where we just wore
them out.
Most anglers
still think of crappie fishing as a spring only season and believe me the fall
and winter fishing is great. Winter is when I always get my biggest fish.
So what does
an out of work, part-time fishing guide do on his off-season? He goes crappie
fishing at his second home Paris Landing Tennessee, located at the south end of
Kentucky Lake. I speak at about four or five shows in Illinois between January
and March but the rest of those weekends I am down in Tennessee, soaking up
that winter sun, usually alone out on the deep ledges. The locals don’t venture
out much in winter as they can fish this fantastic lake anytime they want.
I don’t fish
down there at all like we do here. There are some similarities. We use jigs and
tubes but just bigger. I never take my long rods as a good stout walleye rod
works better. I spool an ultra light spinning reel with 8/3 Fireline Crystal
braid and another with four pound mono if the fish are finicky.
We fish
sharp drops from 18 to 24 feet down one reel crank off bottom or if it is a
stake bed I follow my jig down the screen and stop it right on top of the stake
bed. The big fish seam to always be on top of the brush.
Here we use
a lot of chartreuse tubes, but down there, the water is very clear so I use
more pearl white and emerald blue shiner tubes. I also use a lot of buck tail
jigs. Big ones geared for smallmouth. Since the water is so deep we use quarter
ounce jigs and hold it very still and wait for a strike so hard it jars your
shoulder. I go down there for big crappie, so I am using big baits.
Wind is your
worst enemy down there, so I always try and hit it with the wind forecast of
eight mile per hour or less. With the internet, you can get weather forecasts
and wind. I have my bags packed and if the wind looks good for the weekend we
are off. Cold doesn’t bother me, we just want full sun.
With
Christmas just around the corner, I have some good ideas for that fisherman in
your life. Recently, I have taken on a new venture. I am making instructional
DVDs. I have a spring crappie fishing DVD out on Lake Shelbyville and I am
wrapping up a winter pattern DVD on both Lake Shelbyville and Kentucky Lake. They
all have no commercials and no ads for other companies, just good fishing tips
and plenty of good fishing action. They have a home-spun look. Everyone that
has seen them has really liked them.
I also give
gift certificates that are good for a guide trip once the weather breaks. I
start booking a ton of trips at the fishing shows in January, so a gift
certificate in December would give you first shot at the best trips for both
the spring crappie spawn and the best white bass run.