You know, there was a time when, us, bass anglers wouldn't use soft plastics in cold waters because the material didn't do well in cold water. It would stiffen up, and it wouldn't move as well. Today's plastics are different and you can use them throughout the entire winter. And so I love plastic baits. I want to talk about the seven plastic baits that I like to use in cold water that work really well. So let's start with soft plastic jerkbaits.
These work really well when the fish are shallow or deep. When they're shallow, you can fish it like a traditional soft plastic jerkbait weedless, and just kind of twitch it along and let it slowly fall and saunter. The key thing here is that the wintertime, a smaller size works best. So stick with like a 3 to 4-inch size jerkbait rather than your larger size that you would use in the summer. It takes a little bit longer for it to fall through the water column. Again, you're imitating a dying baitfish or one that's struggling in the cold water. So it naturally is going to move a lot slower. So you've got to pack your patience with it.
But when the fish are up shallow during this time of year, which they can if you've had a warming spell, this is a great time to fish a weightless jerkbait. Now, if they're deeper, you could fish it a different way. You can use an underspin. Now, an underspin jighead is... And I can fish at any depth. And the cool thing about that is that you can work it on the outside weedlines. I can speak. On the outside weedlines, you can fish it on steep drop-offs, steep banks, that maybe there's some deep weeds and deeper water on the outside edges of those deep weeds.
There's all kinds of areas where the bass will congregate and you can use an underspin to fish those areas effectively with a 3-inch, 4-inch soft plastic jerkbait on them. And you can go to town. You can catch a lot of fish. It doesn't even matter the water temp is like in the low 40s, bass will still eat it. So I love fishing those soft plastic baits during this time of year.
Now, another soft plastic bait I like to use are paddle tail swimbaits or the swimbaits. Those work really... Again, you can fish them at any depth, and bass are going to be congregated now in certain areas. But you can cover water with them and find those areas. It's harder to do that with those soft plastic jerkbaits because they move slower. But with a paddle tail, you can move faster. Put a jighead or a swimbait jighead on them, and you can go anywhere from 1/8 ounce up to 3/4 ounce with an open hook jig, and cover a lot of water with them.
Again, downsize, maybe 4 inch is all you need or 3-and-1/2 inch, not a much larger size. A smaller baitfish presents a better profile this time of year. That's kind of what the fish are keying on of the smaller baitfish. So, again, fish, those points that drop off into the main creek channel. Or maybe it's an area that's got some scattered boulders and some stumps that drop off into deeper water, bridge pilings, those type of things, maybe a wind-blown point, those work really good. You cover water along those areas and find where those fish are stacked up, and then you can work it really good those baits.
Grubs are an old standby for me. I started fishing them back in the '80s when they were popular. And they're just kind of wane in popularity. But I think they are a secret bait that a lot of people don't talk about. Grubs work really well on cold water. Those 3-inch Kalin Grubs, have got those thin tails that move with the slightest twitch, work best for me. I like to put them on two different rigs, or, actually, three. One is with a jighead, like a ball head jig, open hook. That works really good if you want to swim it through the water column.
But a lot of times, I like to drag it this time of year when the water temp is really cold. And I'll put that on a split shot, and I'll drain. Then I can Texas rig it, and drag it through weeds, through cover, without the risk of it getting hung up. Just slowly moving along in those cold temperatures. And that's, a lot of times, with the long pauses in between, is what's going to elicit the bite. The thing is, is you have to pay attention to what you're doing while you're doing it and what you were doing when the bass bit. So play with how slow you move it. How long your pauses are in between, play with those. And, eventually, you're going to find the combination the bass want. And when you get bit, you better be paying close attention to what it was you were doing, because that's what you want to replicate the rest of the day.
Another way to fish grubs is on a drop shot rig. This is more pinpoint, more for working areas once you've found the fish. So if you've been working a stretch of water and you catch some fish on a crankbait, for example, slow down, go back in that area with a drop shot grub, and you can catch a lot more fish. By the way, if you've been catching fish on a crankbait and then the bite wanes, switch to a grub. Sometimes the bite will pick right back up again. So a drop shot works really well in those situations.
Another bait that I like to use this time of year is the tube. A tube works really well. I fished very similar, the same way as grubs. Again, dragging it on the bottom is the one I like the most behind a split-shot Texas rig. You can fish it at any depth at that point. Along the outside of weedlines is what I like to do the most. But any time there's a drop or drop off or maybe right at the very bottom part of a creek channel, those are the areas where the bass are going to hang out, and that's what I target with a tube. Fishing it with a split shot, you can cover a lot of water that way, dragging it on the bottom. You can also put it on a drop shot. So a drop shot works really well to target those areas.
If you've caught bass on, let's say, a point that's got some stumps on it and you've been dragging through with a split shot with that tube, now you can change it up and put it on a drop shot and work that area even more thoroughly and slowly, methodically, with a drop shot. Again, you can put it on a jighead too. Jigheads work great. That slow spiraling action, you can only get that with a tube. It's a dying baitfish imitator. Works really well this time of year when bass are key in on dying baitfish. It's almost, to me, like the best time to use a tube because you can catch a lot of fish in a hurry doing that. And it's just you got to let the bait do its thing. Let it slowly spiral down and do that action, that dying baitfish action, is what triggers those bites.
Hula Grubs are another one of my favorites. Hula Grubs, bass just can't resist them this time of year. There are times when I'm out there fishing Hula Grubs and I'm catching a lot of fish on them, which is fun, but what I like to do is I like to experiment. What else are they going to bite? Maybe they'll bite something better, more aggressively, or what have you. And I'll experiment and play and play and it turns out, nope, they want a Hula Grub, and that's all they're going to bite. There are days like that, and I've been very successful with them.
The most successful way I fish them is on a football head jig. I typically fish these areas like riprap or rocky bottoms, open water where there's not a lot of weeds or things to snag on. I'll put it on a football jig and just kind of crawl it along the bottom. Sometimes I'll give it a little bit of a hop, but slowly dragging on the bottom with the rod tip, just use your rod tip to move it along the bottom, and stop and then reel up that slack, and then slowly bring it again, or maybe a lift, pull up with your rod tip. I like to do that because I like to watch the rod tip, and I can tell how far I'm moving it because it's going as far as I move the rod.
It's hard to do it when you just move it with the reel, but you can use the reel to give it a little twitch, like you've paused it, sit for a little bit, and give it a little twitch with the rod, sorry, with the reel, and give it that little bit of a lifelike movement and sometimes it's all it takes to trigger that bite. That bass may be there just looking at something, you just give it a little twitch and they go, okay, and they suck it up and grab it.
There's a lot of ways you can do it, long pauses, short pauses, long retrieves, slowly crawling on the bottom, stop and go. Again, pay close attention to what you're doing when you're doing it because when you get bit, you got to replicate that. So you have to know what was I doing right at that moment when that fish bit it and then replicate that the rest of the day and your odds of getting bit are going to go way up the rest of the day.
Craws are another plastic bait that really work well in cold water. The key thing is to not use the ones that don't have a lot of action to it. You want stuff that doesn't move as much, so a pocket craw works really well. A zoom speed craw is another one. Stuff that doesn't have a lot of flappity, flappity flap movement, that's the key, right? And they present a larger profile bait. And they, usually, attract bigger fish and bigger bites, not as many bites, they're not a numbers thing, but you'll catch bigger fish with them.
Fishing on a shaky head. That's the key thing, a shaky head, you can do them different weights, the heavier weight for deeper the water you're going to fish. You get it down there, but that will help stand up the bait and get those craw up there in kind of a defensive posture, and just slowly move it along the bottom. The reason why you're moving it slow is not because the bass are lethargic and they can't chase down a fast-moving bait, no. It's because the baitfish are moving slow.
Crawdads are moving slow in this cold water. They're trying to conserve energy. So they're not going to be moving very quickly. And if you move a bait real fast on the bottom, it's going to look unnatural this time of year. So you're trying to imitate the baitfish. So move it real slow, crawl it, stop, long pauses in between, move it a little bit more, stop, wait, have yourself a sandwich. Sometimes you got to wait a long time. Our patients was really tested as bass anglers. We're used to always moving stuff. Here you got to move it real slow and methodically through the cover on that shaky head, and you can get bit and when it does, it's usually a big fish.
The last bait I like to use is a Ned rig. It's for special time. I don't bring it up that often, but if we've had a front come through and you got those bluebird days and the water is glass, that's usually when the bite is real tough and that's when a Ned rig shines. It's just a little stick of plastic. What you want to do is get the kind that are buoyant so they stick up off the bottom a little bit. But, again, this is a finesse tactic. I'm using spinning rod. I'm using 6-pound test. Real light jighead no matter how deep I'm going, 30 feet deep, 35 feet deep, real light, you got to wait forever to get it to the bottom.
Fluorocarbon line because at that deep with braid, you're going to get a little bow in the water and you're going to have less connection with the bait, so fluorocarbon. And I'm just slowly, slowly dragging it on the bottom with long pauses in between. I'm really picking apart an area. So, again, use your electronics to find these areas where the fish are going to congregate because you're not going to cover a lot of water with this bait. So those steep drops, those areas where bass can hang out, be safe, and comfortable and not have to move far to feed, those are the places where you're getting concentrations of bass.
Maybe those areas where two points come together and it kind of funnels baitfish through. That's an area where bass are going to hang out on. Places where there's a current break, places where there's a little bit of remnants of green weeds on those steeper areas, those are money holes, man. That's where you want to go and fish this Ned rig and just take it apart real slow. I've been with guys, I thought I was fishing slow, and these guys fish it so slow you can take a nap, and they usually catch more fish than me, right? So the slower you fish it, the better you are with this outfit. That's what you got to do under those tough bluebird post-front conditions. Ned rig shines under that.
So with all of these different plastic baits and different techniques I just mentioned, you're bound to catch fish this time of year no matter how cold the water is. For more tips and tricks like this, visit bassresource.com.
