Buzzbaits in Fall/Winter? Ya Gotta Be Kiddin' Me!

That's what I thought until one fall trip I made to Lake Gaston with my buddy, Jim Bauer. The weather turned cold after our arrival, and we couldn't buy a bite. Got to talking with some other fellas camping there with us, though, and learned that they were crushing the bass with...you guessed it...buzzbaits.

Ran across a fella on the Internet who was fishing a club tournament in winter in South Carolina a few years ago, too, when he had a similar experience. Said that for a couple days before the tournament, the temps had gone from sitting in the 40s to being sunny and in the 50s.

Come tournament day, this fella nearly choked to death on a cup of coffee while laughing when he saw his partner drag out a big Hawg Caller buzzbait and begin churning the water with it. His laughter was short-lived, however, when he had to slide the net under his partner's 4-pounder. That fish had inhaled the buzzbait...in frigid water, no less, in the dead of winter.

"If I hadn't witnessed it for myself, I'd never have believed it," he said.

Pro angler Kelly Jordon is a believer in buzzbaits in cold water, as well.

"I've caught some giants in 46-degree water in both spring and fall, when most people think you have to fish deep," said Jordon. "On unseasonably warm spring and late-fall afternoons, bass will venture into shallow water to feed," he added. "When fish move toward shallows in cold water, they're usually looking for one thing: a big meal."

The point Jordon and other pros make is that fish still will bite a topwater, even when we don't think they will. A buzzbait is one of the best topwater baits for this timeframe. When fishing a buzzbait in colder water, though, you're going to want to really crawl the bait along. Hold your rod tip up a bit and fish the bait as slow as you can, while still keeping it up on the surface.

The size of buzzbait to use depends on the abundance of baitfish. If a lot of baitfish are around, a 1/4-oz. model will be easier to fish slow and better mimics shad. When there aren't many baitfish, the slow, deep chug of a 1/2-oz. model will serve you better in cold water.

This discussion is not to say that buzzbaits will work on all fall and winter days. The pros are quick to point out that there are even some sunny winter days when it's pointless to fish a buzzbait, e.g., such as when the water temps already have plummeted deep into the 40s. However, three or four consecutive sunny days in a row can bring the water temps back up into the 50s, as long as there aren't disastrously low temps at night between those sunny days. So on the tail end of a trend like that, by all means be ready to break out the buzzbait again.

Warm rains also can raise the water temps, especially in the south. And shallow water is the quickest to change temperature due to multiple days of sunshine and rain. So if you find yourself in a situation where your body is telling you no, but the temp on your graph is telling you yes, just try it out. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Another tried-and-true wintertime buzzbait fishing technique is to trail a plastic frog behind it. This tactic is most effective when used in areas with floating or scattered grass. You also can create a winter rig by attaching a soft-plastic swimbait. Adding the swimbait's solid body to the buzzbait allows lethargic bass to get more of the rig into their mouths when striking. The rig's added weight also lets you cast farther and cover more surface area.

When fishing this hybrid lure, keep the softbait submerged so that the bass can suck it into their mouth without breaking the water's surface. Try skipping your combo rig under boat docks (up to 25-plus feet back) before starting your retrieve. Even though you won't be able to see the buzzbait, you still can hear it and feel the bass strike. If the bass don't seem interested in a plastic frog, switch over to your swimbait minnows or other softbaits.

As some folks have pointed out, anglers in the south all too often will bail on the topwater bite after waking up to frost on their vehicles for the first time. As anglers, we have a tendency to fish the air temperatures and not the water temperature. In the spring, a warm sunny day will have us burning baits back to the boat when the water temps are in the 40s, and fish still are in a slow-roll mood. In the early winter, our need for coveralls and toboggans will have us crawling baits through water that's still in the mid-50s...not cosidering buzzbait fishing.

The truth is that it takes several consecutive days of cold or warm air temps to really get the mercury moving in either direction, relative to water temps. So you need to really focus on what the fish are feeling, not what you're feeling.