Why Snow?
Although there haven’t been any
detailed studies supporting the notion
that bass feeding activity increases
during a snowfall, Strader’s theory
revolves around light penetration.
“If you’ve ever been outside during
a snowfall during the day, particularly
in the South, you’ll notice that the sky
turns a really weird color,” Strader
observes. “It’s overcast, but it’s actual-
ly still fairly bright out. Bass down
here don’t see that very often, and
maybe it triggers them to feed. It’s
dark enough that they don’t get
spooked by the sun, but not so dark
that they can’t see to feed.”
To Bohannan, the bass are doing
what just about all predators do
when they sense a storm coming –
feeding.
“Animals can sense an approaching storm, whether
by feeling the barometric pressure dropping, or
some other instinctive trigger. They know that they’re
probably going to be pretty uncomfortable for the
next couple days, and they want to feed while the
— Greg Bohannan
feeding’s good.”
“You see it in just about every out-
door pursuit, whether in the woods
or on the water,” he adds. “Animals
can sense an approaching storm,
whether by feeling the barometric
pressure dropping, or some other
instinctive trigger. They know that
they’re probably going to be pretty
uncomfortable for the next couple
days, and they want to feed while the
feeding’s good.”
Get out There
When the snowflakes do start
falling, Bohannan and Strader agree
that the biggest key to unlocking the
bite is to shift gears and cover lots of
water.
“In the wintertime, I’m normally
fishing something slow, like a jerkbait
or a grub,” Bohannan says. “Once I
see snow start coming down, though,
I’m going to pick up something I can
chuck and wind – maybe a spinner-
bait or crankbait – and get just a little
bit more aggressive.”
There’s an expression some
anglers use to describe a typical sum-
mer fishing process: “fishing fast,
slowly.” It means working a bait quick-
ly, but being extremely thorough and
deliberate about each presentation.
Fishing in the snow calls for the oppo-
site approach, something akin to
“fishing slowly, fast.”
To Strader, that means working a
spinnerbait or crankbait in a number
of areas and rotating through them
quickly, though he’s still fishing the
bait in a manner that’s typically pro-
ductive in cold water.
“You’re not going to start catching
them all of a sudden by burning a spin-
nerbait, or speed-cranking through
your areas. You’re still methodically
fishing like you would in the winter;
you just hit lots of spots and stick to
the moving baits because the bass are
more aggressive.”
Find the Rocks
58
Bohannan says to switch from slow-moving baits to something faster – a crankbait or spinnerbait –
when the snow falls.
Rocks become especially attractive
to bass in the winter because they
hold tons of forage. Consequently,
both Bohannan and Strader focus
most of their “snow day” efforts find-
ing and fishing a variety of rocky
structures.
“In the Ozarks, you’ve got rock in
just about every form imaginable,”
Bohannan explains. “When it’s snow-
ing, though, I focus on finding transi-
tion banks that tend to be a little flatter.
Places where a bluff tapers to a flat, the
FLWFISHING.COM I JANUARY 2017