Winter Fishing Destinations

by Steve Welch

It may be cold outside, but there are fish to be caught and here are some of my favorite trips. I spend every free moment I have from mid-March through mid-December guiding and tournament fishing on my home lake and wherever Crappie U.S.A. might take me.

Once we get past December 15, I start looking forward to my winter season of very few guide trips and some extra “me” time.

My “me” time starts on December 15 because on Lake Shelbyville, my home lake, the Corp of Engineers starts the annual winter drawdown. They drop the lake from 599.6 down to 594 feet above sea level. This can take from three to six weeks, depending on rainfall.

The fishing below the dam for big muskies is the best in the world during this drawdown. We get tons of hook ups and, on a good day, you will get nine or 10 fish that measure 39 to 46 inches. I see very few legal 48-inch fish, but who wants to keep one anyway? A 46-inch, 28-pound fish isn’t too shabby.

Each year during the drawdown, I bet more than 500 muskies are hooked and released. I know two fishing buddies who caught 197 between the two of them during January 2007.

Tackle-wise, we use baitcasters spooled with 17 pound mono and heavy flipping sticks. We tie on 10 inches of Tyger leader in 30-pound test, which you can tie directly to your lure with a normal knot.

Up front at the discharge area, it looks like Niagara Falls with the water coming out of the floodgates. You will notice a slack area out in the middle of the river. This is where the fish stack up.

The other place that fish are hiding is right in front of you, where the river bottom comes up to the steps on which you are standing. This area attracts debris and the fish hide in it.

We use one-ounce jigs with six-inch twisters in white, Tennessee shad, or chartreuse. We also use minnow imitators in the same colors.

There’s no trick to casting the jig. Just throw it out in the middle at two-o’clock, let it fall, and reel very slowly until it gets to about ten o’clock.  By then it is in your next strike zone or the ledge in front of the steps.

A good feel is very important to avoid losing contact with your jig. Most of the strikes won’t be any harder than a crappie bite, but the fight is on in that current! Several good runs almost completely across the river will get your heart pumping.

The area of the river towards the bridge has less current, so traditional muskie tackle will work. I have caught bigger fish in this area, with my largest coming on a shallow Invader. It was a viscous strike that happened while I was working the lure parallel to the shore.

My wife just happened to be setting in a lawn chair not 10 feet from the shore and witnessed the whole thing. She was scared nearly half to death.

I am a die-hard crappie fisherman and winter fishing is an overlooked time to catch the biggest crappie of your life.

I just got off the water at Lake Shelbyville on November 25, 2007 with my biggest crappie of the year at that lake. It was a fat, 14 ½-inch fish.

Next week I will probably break that record. Last year my largest, a fish about the same size, came during my last trip just six days before the lake iced over.

If I am not at the Shelbyville spillway or doing a winter fishing show, you can bet I am at Tennessee’s Paris Landing on Kentucky Lake. I usually go four or five times from mid-December through mid-March. There are no crowds and many times I have the lake to myself.

Many fishermen wait until April to get in on the spawn. Not me, I would rather fish deep out on the ledges of the Big Sandy and Eagle rivers. You won’t get the numbers of fish that you will in early April, but you will get bigger fish. However, I have had more than one two-man limit days during winter.

Good electronics and a GPS are a must. I have two GPS systems on my boat and they are networked together. I can split my screen on the front GPS and slide right up over my brush piles without having to use my outboard motor. More importantly, I can hang back and get my rods ready.

I put four rods in my Tite lock rod holders, all rigged with ¾-ounce weights on the end of the line.  One foot up the line I tie on a snelled hook and put a big shiner on it.  I use 10-foot Outlaw rods and small baitcasters spooled with 12-pound mono.

I now have 376 waypoints on my Lowrance GPS system and about 150 of them are in the middle of Kentucky Lake on ledges and river channels. Depending on the GPS waypoint, it marks either a brush pile or a stake bed.

I rig my poles in the rod holders differently for brush piles than stake beds. For a brush pile, I will place them about three feet off bottom or just above the highest branch. A stake bed is taller, so I will place them six to seven feet above bottom.

Just slide up over the spot and get ready. All four rods will go down and I mean go down. The whole top half of the pole will go under water when one of those heavy Kentucky Lake crappies loads up on it.

I also use jigs on my spinning outfits. I can better feel the jigs in those deep brush piles on the shorter rods. I use ¼-ounce Bighead jigs and Midsouth tubes. I spool the reel with eight-pound Spiderwire braid in the new crystal color. You can straighten light hooks and have a lot better feel by using the braided line.

How do I plan ahead on a trip down to Paris Landing? I get on the Paris Landing web site and look at the weather for the next three days.  More importantly, I check the wind speed forecast. I try to go when the wind is less than ten mph and there is full sun if possible. When you are out in the middle of the lake, there is nowhere to hide from the wind. The lake really gets rolling during a north or south wind.

Bags are packed and I am out of here after work on Fridays. I stay at the Fishtale Lodge. It is about the only place to stay during winter and Sharon will take good care of you.

It takes me five to six hours to drive there, depending on where we stop for supper. I fish all day Saturday and Sunday and leave at noon on Monday. We average between 90 and 120 keepers per trip for me and two anglers. We bring my biggest cooler, keep ice on the fish, and clean them when we get back.

That’s pretty good fishing for the dead of winter.