Success at last fishing cold water!

[Questor]

Larry:

Thanks again for the advice on handling the cold water period of lake fishing. My goal is specifically to catch big bluegills between mid-October and ice-up on one particular local lake. Your tip to use an inflated worm on a Carolina rig, then fish dropoffs near the main basin of the lake are starting to pay off. I went out yesterday and finally started catching this kind of fish.

Now that I've got some success, the next step is to map the lake and hit a variety of spots that look like they will pay off. It's just a matter of time before I've got this fall fishing figured out.

I did try a worm blower, but ended up using a small floating jig most of the time, and that seems to be working pretty well.

One key on this particular lake seems to be staying away from depths where there is rotting vegetation on the bottom. I just do some exploratory casts to find out what the bottom is like, then if the bottom isn't clean, I don't fish it.

[dahlberg]

Hey Q
Thanks for the report. Sounds like you're starting to zero in. If you can find any vegetation that's still green it would be worth checking as well. The kind of places you find fish at first ice are always good.
The places where froggies go to sleep is also worth investigating with a jig and pig worked really slow.
best,
L