RAPPIN’
WINTER
BASS
TARGET SUSPENDED,
COLD-WATER FISH WITH
ICE FISHING JIGGING BAITS
W
hen cold winds sweep across Table Rock Lake and
gray clouds spit snow, you won’t find FLW pro Jeremy
Lawyer at home on the couch. Instead, he’s bundled
up in heavy clothing, staring at his fish finder and “video gaming”
deep, timber-dwelling bass on his electronics with a Turnback
Shad, an example of the type of small, minnow-shaped jigging
bait that previously was reserved for ice fishermen.
“These are definitely dead-of-the-winter types of baits,”
says Lawyer, 39, of Sarcoxie, Mo. “In these deep Ozarks reser-
voirs, the bass will suspend in the treetops of timber that
might be in as much as 100 feet of water. These ice-fishing
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2017 I FLWFISHING.COM
By Brent Frazee
PHOTO BY BRIAN LINDBERG
baits are perfect for that type of fishing. They’re heavy, so
they drop quickly. And they dart around and glide just like a
baitfish. A lot of times, bass will just smash them.”
The technique once was a guarded secret in the Ozarks.
Guides would go out in the dead of winter and catch keep-
er bass on Rapala Jigging Raps – regarded as the original
ice-jigging bait – on reservoirs such as Table Rock, Lake of
the Ozarks, Bull Shoals, Norfork and Beaver.
But the word is out. Today, bass fishermen such as
Lawyer consider the jigging baits to be among their “go-to”
lures in the winter.
59