Making winter water warm

Lake Monticello is unique in many ways, one being that it’s a pump-back type reservoir that puts warm water into the lake during cold weather.

George Buckner and Greg Darr, both from Aiken, catch plenty of nice smallmouth and largemouth bass at Monticello, and because of the unique pump-back system, they often get them in relatively shallow water using crankbaits.

“We work different patterns in January, including simply running crankbaits around rocks off points as well as fairly shallow humps on Lake Monticello,” Buckner said. “On one trip in early 2014, we had two smallmouth bass in the 5-pound class and a 7-pound largemouth, among several other hefty bass.”

“For smallmouth, I prefer points with clusters of rocks in 10 to 14 feet of water,” he said. “For largemouth, some really big fish are caught even shallower, in 3 to 8 feet of water off points and even around shoreline objects.

“Because of the warmer water in the lower part of Lake Monticello, the speed on the crankbait (retrieve) is actually pretty fast,” he said. “The bass don’t care that it’s January; they just know its 60-degree water, and they react to that.”