Cold Water Bass

My little float tube is not actually an ice breaker; there have been a couple times over these past few years when I actually fished directly beside a sheet of ice. January 10^th of this year found Harrison and I out in 53 degree weather, in fact the weather was simply remarkable for this time of the year. The two of us had made our way to Shelter Lake located in the Hillenbrand FWA just north of Linton in hopes of finding a fish or two…but more important the fact that this was my last week with the number one son before he goes back to Lewis and another semester of college.

We both had our 5mm neoprene waders on along with wader liners, and a couple of shirts under a good heavy jacket. The problem in a float tube is not what is out of the water…it is what is in the water and since our feet are in the water, we have to use kick fins to move around…and the water temperature is within a degree or two of 40, you can imagine that your feet can get pretty cold. The bottom line is that we have a window of about an hour and a half, maximum, before it gets too cold to continue on.

I was the first one off and was kicking backwards at a pretty good rate with my 6 weight in hand and was using my streamer express line that has a sinking front portion and a rear floating portion…the front portion which is black in color sinks at a high rate, approximately 5 to 6 inches per second and will get a fly down deep and pretty quickly, that is where the fish were hanging out. I had gone about halfway down the lake before I had my first take; the fly was deep and I was making very slow strips back towards me when I felt a tug and quickly gave a strip set. I felt pressure and in a second I could see my line moving; moments later I landed my first ever bass from a float tube in January, a nice 15 incher that appeared pretty lethargic and frankly didn’t put up much of a battle. The next cast resulted in a 10 inch white crappie that fought about as hard as the much larger bass.

It was evident that a pattern had been established and to no great surprise…the fish were down deep and for them to take the fly it needed to be a very slow presentation; you clearly want to ask the fish to expend as little energy needed to inhale the bug. I could hear Harrison kicking by me, he had been gone for about 20 minutes and I found out later that he had made a quick trip all the way to the end of the lake and back…with no success. I kicked closer and we talked a bit about how nice the weather was when it seemed as though someone had just shut the heat off. The sun, in all its glory had just reached the horizon line of the trees and the difference in temperature was dramatic.

We decided we had about 30 minutes back to the truck and should get started but I was not ready to stop fishing and decided to try a zig zag pattern across the middle of the lake. I made a long cast and was kicking at a pace that would keep me moving but would allow the fly to sink down to 10 or 12 feet. I was watching my depth finder and trying to stay over water that was deeper than 12 feet. My goal is to have the fly slowly moving through at a depth where I think the fish will be…then make slow, methodical strips. What I have found is that the big fish will locate and trail the fly waiting for the right time for an ambush.

Harrison was just to my left, I had about 50 feet of line out when I felt a tug. I quickly made a strip set but was too late; I have learned to leave the fly alone and usually a fish will come back for a second attack, not this time. I picked up the line and made one more cast back into the same area and allowed the fly to sink…I started kicking backwards when I felt another crank on the fly and this time my strip set hit home; I could quickly tell that I had struck  gold and it felt like a nice fish. My line started ripping toward the bank and I put the heat on the fish…in the clear water I could see that it was in deed a nice bass. I stripped the fish in and lipped what was a 20 inch bass. It was a beautiful sight and I had my film crew just to my left and thus Harrison snapped a few photos as the light was fading around us. It was a great night filled with some fishing, talking and a lot of enjoyment of being outdoors on a January afternoon when we shouldn’t have been; it is at times like these that I truly Enjoy the Great Outdoors.