When it comes to catching bass in February, things are pretty clear to me — as in, clear water. There is no more important factor to consider when you decide that your cabin fever has gotten too much for you and you have to head for your home lake or go crazy.
When it’s cold, if you want to catch bass, the water had better be clear. I can’t stress how important it is. If it’s been consistently cold, you need to find the clearest water and fish it.
That’s why Badin Lake has been a good lake to catch bass in the winter, and Lake Wylie, and Shearon Harris and Lake Norman. Even though the water can be pretty cold, you definitely want to fish lakes like those with clear water. Lakes like High Rock and Tuckertown, which can get stained and muddy up pretty quickly, those lakes usually don’t fish as well during cold weather.
Anyway, February can be a good month to catch bass. Hopefully, it won’t be too frigid, because everybody will be ready to go fishing, itching to go. We’re actually pretty fortunate in the South, because there are places up north that are iced over until June.
Down here, as long as the water temperature is around 49 or 50 degrees, you can catch ’em. If it gets much below 49, the fishing gets extremely tough. For some reason, 49 is a big number; I’ve never done well with the water temperature around 45. It needs to be around 48 or 49, at least, before you can catch ’em good.
Besides looking for the clearest water around, you’re also looking for the warmest water, because a difference of a degree or two can mean good fishing in one spot and poor fishing in another. If you’ve had a warming trend, you might look in the backs of creeks, where the shallow water will warm up quickly. If not, you’re looking for places that are protected from the north wind, like short, deep pockets on the main lake.
If you’re not fishing the back of a creek, you want to be fishing a place where you can sit in 20 feet of water and cast up near the bank. Real sharp drops are good, and rocky banks are not bad. Fish are probably not gonna move all the way up on a flat in February.
But you’d better be fishing in clear water. I can remember fishing a tournament at Lake Wylie one time. The water temperature was about 48 or 49 degrees, so I said to myself, “I’m going up to the Hot Hole and win this tournament.” So I went up there where the water was dirty, and I slow-rolled a spinnerbait and threw a jig all day, and I caught one fish. The guys who stayed down in the clear, colder water killed me on a jerkbait.
Bass are going to be fairly sluggish in cold water, so you can’t just zoom a spinnerbait or crankbait past them and expect them to chase. You have to fish a bait that’s going to sit in front of them for a while. Exactly what you use will depend on the situation, and there can be so many situations in February. I’ve won tournaments in February fishing a DT-10 in the backs of creeks, and I’ve won tournaments in February on the main lake with a jigging spoon, and I’ve done really well with a suspending jerkbait like a Rapala Husky Jerk, a Spoonbill Rebel or a jig. Every bait in your tackle box can be good or not worth a thing.
Whatever bait you choose, you have to retrieve it as slowly as you can. The colder it is, the slower you go — and I’m terrible at that kind of fishing. I’ve fished with guys who were fishing suspended jerkbaits, and they’d make a cast and maybe wind it down a little bit, and just let it sit and sit and sit. I’d make two casts while they were just letting it sit there.
A lot of times bass will suspend in cold water, and that’s when fishing a suspending jerkbait will really work. There aren’t that many lakes in North Carolina that have timber — Jordan has a little — but a lot of times if there are trees left uncut that are under the water, the bass will suspend in the tree tops, and you can catch ’em on a jerkbait or crankbait.
Fishing in February might be very frustrating to some fisherman, and I admit being one of them. But remember, it could be worse. You could live somewhere there’s two or three feet of snow on the ground, where the only fishing is in a little wooden shanty looking down in a hole in the ice, trying to catch bream or perch.
David Fritts is a 52-year-old pro bass fisherman from Lexington. He was the 1993 Bassmasters Classic champion, and the 1997 FLW Tour Championship, and he was the 1994 BASS Angler of the Year. He is sponsored by Tums, Ranger boats, Evinrude outboards, Rapala, VMC hooks, Zoom, American RodSmiths and Bass Pro Shops.
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