The monthly guide to Midwest finesse: January 2013

Introduction:

On New Year's Day, ice covered most of the flatland reservoirs that stipple the countryside of northeastern Kansas.  Two of the ice-free reservoirs were warmed by power plants. Because some Midwest anglers have to travel more than a hundred miles to fish these warm-water environs, they are often reluctant to make that wintertime foray, and instead they stay home and  eagerly await for the ice to melt at the nearby reservoirs.

To provide a historical perspective about when northeastern Kansas reservoirs become  ice-free, and when we were able to be afloat during winter's past, we examined our logs from 2004 through 2013. Here are the dates of our  first outings during those years:  Feb. 27, 2004;  Feb. 14, 2005; Jan. 3, 2006;  Jan. 2-11, 2007; Mar. 3, 2008;  Feb. 10, 2009;  Mar. 5, 2010; Jan. 30, 2011,  Jan. 25, 2012, and Jan. 28, 2013.

It is interesting to note that unseasonably cold weather arrived on Dec. 5, 2005, driving area thermometers down to -13 degrees on Dec. 8,  and  ice quickly covered our cold-water reservoirs.  But shortly before Christmas,  a spell of unseasonably warm weather erupted, causing the ice to melt. Thus,  as the last sheets of ice were disappearing on Dec. 26, we were afloat, and from that date on, our reservoirs were ice-free for the rest of the winter of 2005-06.

Back in January of 2007, we fished on Jan. 2, 3, 5, 8, 9 and 11.  On those six outings,  we plied an 11,600-acre U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' reservoir three times, a 195-acre community reservoir twice and a 416-acre community reservoir once. The surface temperature at these reservoirs ranged from 39 degrees to 41 degrees. On every outing, we fished from about 11 a.m. to about 3 p.m., and we caught and released 135 largemouth bass. At the 11,600-acre reservoir, we caught only 35 largemouth bass, but several of them were four-pounders. After Jan. 11, 2007, ice eventually covered all of our reservoirs except our 2,600-acre and 5,090-acre warm-water reservoirs, and we didn't get afloat on what we call our cold-water reservoirs again until Feb. 26, 2007.

Cold and murky water usually confounds our wintertime largemouth bass fishing. And on Mar. 2, 2008, Mother Nature walloped much of  northeastern Kansas with an inch to two inches of  rain, which muddy many of our cold-water reservoirs. The rain melted the ice on our reservoirs  but the water clarity was so murky that we didn't catch a largemouth bass until Mar. 12, 2008.

This January Old Man Winter allowed us to  fish four times. Three of those outings transpired  at a 2,600-acre  warm-water reservoir and one occurred as the ice was melting at a nearby 416-acre community reservoir.   We fished 15 1/4 hours and caught 140 largemouth bass, which is an average of nine largemouth bass an hour. In addition to the four logs that describe those four January outings,Terry Bivins of Lebo, Kansas, Casey Kidder of Topeka, Kansas, Mike Poe of Siler City, North Carolina,  Drew Reese of Rantoul, Kansas, Chris Rohr of Overland Park, Kansas, and Dave Weroha of Kansas City contributed several logs and piscatorial insights to this monthly guide.

Logs:

January 6 log

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Dave Weroha of Kansas City reported to the Finesse News Network that he had a solo outing to a 2,600-acre power-plant reservoir in northeastern Kansas on  Jan. 6.

He caught those 17 largemouth bass on a Z-Man's Fishing Products' green-pumpkin Finesse ShadZ affixed to a 1/32-ounce jig, a Z-Man black-and-blue four-inch Finesse WormZ on a 1/32-ounce jig, and  a Z-Man's Smoky Shad 3 3/4-inch StreakZ on a 1/32-ounce jig. He trimmed 1 1/2-inches off the head the Finesse ShadZ, making it 2 1/2-inches long.

He failed the catch a largemouth bass on a Z-Man's 2 1/2-inch watermelon-and-white ZinkerZ affixed to a 1/32-ounce  jig and a Z-Man's Mud Minnow hue Hula StickZ on a 1/32-ounce jig.

The most effective retrieve was an excruciatingly slow one. He would deadstick  his baits for 30 seconds or more, and then he would  lightly twitch it and occasionally hop it. He was fishing shorelines, but all 17 of the bass were caught 10 to 15 feet away from the water's edge in depths of five to eight feet of water.

Weroha concluded his report by saying: "I did not journey north to the third and fourth bluff area as boater congestion combined with my curiosity to fish colder waters in the south led me south bound. In a future outing I would like to explore some flats, creek channels and breaks €¦" rather than just fishing shorelines.

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Mike Poe of Siler, North Carolina, filed a report with Finesse News Network about his Jan. 6 outing on a community reservoir.  He noted that this reservoir had ice on it on Jan. 5, but by the time that he launched his boat at 11:30 a.m., the ice has disappeared. Area thermometer hit a high of 51 degrees, and Poe estimated that the surface temperature of this small reservoir was in the low 40s.

The water level was three feet below normal, and the water clarity in the upper portions of the lake was stained but relatively clear elsewhere. The wind was nil.

On this solo outing, he fished to 3:30 p.m. and caught 10 largemouth bass, ranging in size from 14-inches to three-pounds, and they were extracted from about four feet of water.

All of them were caught on a green-pumpkin-red 2 1/2-inch ZinkerZ on a blood-red 1/16-ounce Gopher Tackle Mushroom Head Jig. Every strike occurred on the initial fall, and after that initial fall, he failed to garner a strike with all of the Midwest finesse retrieves that he implemented, which he described as perplexing and aggravating. At times, he wielded a crankbait, which failed elicit a strike. He said it was one of those outings when it seemed that they only way to get a strike was to be fortunate to make a cast that landed virtually on the head of a largemouth bass.

January 7 log

At 11 a.m. on Jan, 6 my cousin Rick Hebenstreit of Shawnee, Kansas, and I launched my boat for the first time since that about 11 a.m.  on Nov. 6, 2012, when I had an encounter with a patch of algae.  That skirmish with the algae at a 416-acre community reservoir caused me to fall on the boat ramp and slide partially into the water. When I fell, I broke my wrist severely. A week later a surgeon pieced some of the bones into place with screws and a metal plate.

Except when my wife, Patty, took me for three short bank-walking outings  at a nearby 195-acre community reservoir, and Terry Claudell loaded me into his boat for a short spell at a 100-acre community on Dec. 4, I had not fished since Nov. 2.

Since then all of the reservoirs in northeastern Kansas had become ice covered except for the two  that are graced with hot water that jettisons out of power plants that lie on their eastern shorelines

So, on this maiden outing of 2013, Rick joined me on the  75-mile jaunt to a 2,600-acre power-plant reservoir. This is the same reservoir that Dave Weroha of Kansas City fished on Jan. 6.

Area thermometers registered a morning low of 26 degrees and a high at 3 p.m. of 51 degrees.  The normal high temperature for date  is 38, and the normal low is 19 degrees.  While we were fishing from 11:20 a.m. to 2:45 p.m., the wind angled from the southwest at 13 to 23 mph. The sky was fair until around 2 p.m., when it became slightly cloudy, but the sun was still in our eyes when we made our last casts. This time of the year when we fish western shorelines and we are moving from north to south, the sun is usually in our eyes, which can be a rather irksome ordeal.  Around 11 a.m., the barometric pressure was 30:29 and falling. The solunar calendar indicated that the best fishing time occurred from 6:44 a.m. to 8:44 a.m.

The water clarity was stained with an algae bloom to the point that we could barely see the propeller on the trolling motor, and this what we call our Kansas Secchi disc, and if we can see the propeller, we call the water Kansas clear. So, it was almost Kansas clear.  We ventured to the southern edge of the warm-water plume, where the surface temperature was 47 degrees, and we also examined the northern reaches of the plume, where the surface temperature registered 43 degrees. (It should be noted that the wind direction and velocity, as well as the  amount of electricity that the power plant generates, effects the water temperature and the whereabouts of the warm water at this reservoir.) According to the folks at the marina, the water level was a foot below normal. The warmest water that we fished was 53.9 degrees.

Because the wind was brisk we spent nearly three hours hiding from it by fishing two long bluffs within the confines of the warm-water plume, where the surface temperature ranged from 53.9 to 50 degrees. We spent about five minutes fishing a small bluff on the northern border of the warm-water plume and the surface temperature was  45 degrees. We spent the last 20 minutes fishing a  bluff  near the southern border of the warm-water plume, and here the surface temperature ranged from 49 to 51 degrees.  All of these bluff were situated along the western shoreline, and they were mostly from the southwest wind.

Our spinning rods were dressed with a Z-Man's green-pumpkin Finesse ShadZ on either a 1/32-ounce or 1/16-ounce chartreuse Gopher jig. (Traditionally, this Finesse ShadZ is the best combo at this reservoir in December and January, and it was the best combo on this outing.) Our spinning outfits were also dressed with a Z-Man's pearl Finesse ShadZ on a 1/16-ounce chartreuse Gopher jig, a Z-Man's  pearl Rain MinnowZ on a chartreuse 1/16-ounce Gopher jig, a four-inch Z-Man's black-neon Finesse WormZ on a red 1/16-ounce Gopher jig, a four-inch Z-Man's green-pumpkin Finesse WormZ on a red 1/16-ounce Gopher jig, a 2 ½-inch Z-Man's  black-and-blue FattyZ customized tube on a red 1/16 Gopher jig, and several colors of a Z-Man's  2 ½-inch ZinkerZ on a red or blue 1/16-ounce Gopher jig. Of that array of baits, all of them but the 2 1/2-inch ZinkerZ caught some fish.

We caught 44 largemouth bass along the two bluffs within the heart of the warm-water plume. We also caught seven big crappies along these two bluffs.  We failed to land seven largemouth bass, and we tangled with another five that we didn't see before they liberated themselves.

We didn't garner a strike on the bluff where the surface temperature was 45 degrees. At the bluff  along the southern edge of the warm-water plume, we eked out only four white bass and one largemouth bass

Our total catch was 45 largemouth bass, including one that weighed five pounds, 11 ounces and another that weighed five pounds, three ounce, and both of these big ones were caught on bluff No. 3

The biggest bass engulfed the 2 ½-inch black-and-blue FattyZ customized tube. The five-pound, three-ouncer was inveigled on the green-pumpkin Finesse ShadZ on a 1/32-ounce Gopher jig. The Finesse WormZ caught six of the largemouth bass. The pearl Finesse ShadZ caught four largemouth bass. The FattyZ customized tube caught two largemouth bass. The green-pumpkin Finesse ShadZ caught 33 largemouth bass, and the Finesse ShadZ dressed on a 1/32-ounce Gopher jig was slightly more effective than the 1/16-ouncer.  The pearl Rain MinnowZ caught only one largemouth bass and two white bass. The green-pumpkin ShadZ caught two of the white bass and all of the crappie.

The best retrieve was a subtle hop and bounce with some shakes.  We caught a come with a drag-and-shake presentation. A few were also allured with a short deadstick routine.

At the two bluffs with the warm-water plume, we were joined by two boats of power anglers. One boat had two anglers in it, and the other boat was manned by Mike McKinsey of Ozawkie, Kansas. From about 45 minutes, we fished about 20 to 30 feet behind one of the boats, and we saw this pair of anglers catch two largemouth bass.  What's more,  we zigzagged in and around the McKinsey's boat several times, and for more than an hour, we fished the same bluff that he fished with a skirted jig affixed to a NetBait Paca Chunk.  Despite that angling pressure, our Midwest finesse tactics allured 44 bass while we fished the same water that those power anglers thoroughly pounded.

After 1:45 p.m., the strikes became far and few between. Our most productive fishing stretched from 11:25 a.m. to 1:30.

Throughout this entire outing, it was readily apparent that my left arm, wrist and hand was a long way from being as strong and flexible as it was before 11 a.m. Nov 6, 2012.  Nevertheless Rick and I caught our first fish of 2013, which was a joy,  and I fished better than I fished on the four short endeavors that I struggled through in November and December.  On Jan. 9, the surgeon who operated on my wrist told me that I should be back to normal in mid-February, but a few minutes earlier before the surgeon entered the room,  the surgeon's assistant told me that it usually takes a year to regain the strength, flexibility and dexterity after an episode with a severely  broken wrist. We will write a report in mid-February.

January 11 weather notes

The National Weather Service issued this report: "Patchy fog before 8 a.m. Otherwise, mostly cloudy, with a high near 64. Breezy, with a south wind 15 to 25 mph, with gusts as high as 40 mph." The high temperature failed to hit 64 degree, but it did reach 57 degrees, and some wind gust hit 31 mph. This weather knocked the ice off many of the flatland  reservoirs  in northeastern Kansas for a short spell.

January 12 and 13 logs

Mike Poe of Siler City, North Carolina, posted this report on the Finesse News Network:

"We were blessed last week and this weekend with record warmth. The fish responded accordingly.

"On Saturday Jan.  12,   I fished with North Carolina's bass fishing legend, Abe Abernathy. He put on a power fishing clinic catching around 20 largemouth bass with the largest five probably weighing between 23 and 26 pounds. And he was fishing from the back of the boat.

"He was catching them in a few feet of water on Rapala's No. 5 Shad Rap  in a blue steel color and an Ed Chambers' mutt crankbait in a red color. While finesse caught the first one the rest of mine came on a Shad Rap as well in a brown color. Mr. Abernathy is the antithesis of finesses having brought deep water dragging with heavy weights  to the scene decades ago. Normally he would be jigging deep bass but that bite has not materialized this year.

"We had 30 some for the day and the average size was great. The warm water temperature  had the fish in the feeder creeks with the bait. Water color was six inches to one foot of clarity.

"On Sunday,  Jan. 13,  I went solo,  getting out at 11:30 a.m.  and catching 23 largemouth bass. Twelve of these were caught on the 1/16-ounce  Gopher jig with a green-pumpkin-red 2 1/2-inch  ZinkerZ,  including one five-pounder  The best areas were little bluff sections along a creek channel that were  inside the small feeder creek arms.  Most of the largemouth bass inhaled the ZinkerZ combo on the initial, and they headed  to deep water immediately.  The other largemouth bass were caught on a Strike King Lure Company's quarter-ounce  Red Eye Shad and an Ed Chambers' mutt crankbait in a red color. The wind was a factor yesterday as the bass aggressively took the crankbaits on some windy points. I believe in all I had six bass that weighed more than three pound each. A nice day for sure."

"Last week,  the Gopher jig and ZinkerZ combo was  my only hope,  and this week it gave me my largest bass of the weekend. Last week it was icy the day before I fished, this week it was 73 degrees. Not many baits do so well under such varying conditions.

"In addition, my son-in-law Preston Parks caught 30 last Thursday in the Haw River, floating a section of the river in a canoe. The Gopher jig rigged with a watermelon Strike King Lure Company 2 1/2-inch  Zero accounted for his entire catch. Interestingly he was employing a deadstick retrieve among the rocks in the head of the pools. He estimated that he  let the lure remain motionless for 15 seconds or more in some cases.

"This is the best shallow January fishing I have ever had in North Carolina. We used to do several outdoor shows during this period so I would know of action happening all across the state, and the last two years have really been an exception to what has occurred  in past Januaries.  Hope it continues."

January 15 Log

On Jan. 12 and 13 Clyde Holscher of Topeka, Kansas, and Dave Weroha of Kansas City reported on the Finesse News Network that the ice was off of the reservoirs that lie along the Interstate Highway 70 corridor between Topeka and Kansas City. And upon reading that report, choruses of glee and alleluias rang loud and clear from the mouths of a goodly number of Midwest finesse anglers.  But on the morning of Jan. 15, the ice cover had returned after Old Man Winter sashayed back into Kansas, dropping the temperature to 6 degrees at 5:52 a.m. on Jan. 14. In fact, for three days Old Man Winter prevented area thermometers from broaching 30 degrees.

Despite this onslaught of cold weather, Travis Perret of Overland Park, Kansas, and I made the 76-mile drive to fish several of  the warm-water lairs at a 2,600-acre power-plant reservoir on Jan. 15.  And as we traveled south of Kansas City, it got colder, dropping from 27 degrees in the southwest suburbs of Kansas City to 25 degrees at the boat ramp. There was not a drop of snow in Kansas City or Lawrence, but around this reservoir there was about an inch of ice and snow covering the countryside.

Perret and I fished from 12:30 p.m. to 3:45 p.m., and 27 degrees was the warmest it got while we were afloat. Consequential, ice incessantly coated the guides on our rods and the line on the spools of reels. And we were bundled with many layers of winter apparel.  Nevertheless, we caught a largemouth bass on our first cast and our last cast. And during the three hours and 15 minutes between that first and last casts, we caught 50 more largemouth bass, five big crappie, one wiper, one white bass and one channel catfish. We also tangled with six largemouth bass that liberated themselves before we could liberate them. All of them were caught in two to six feet of water.

Weather-wise, the saving grace was that wind was mild-mannered, angling from the northeast at 6 to 7 mph, and there were spells when it was nearly calm. Since the wind didn't howl, the wind chill ranged from a low of 19 degrees to a high of 23 degrees, which Perret and I found to be very tolerable, as long as we wore gloves, state-of-the-art Norwegian long underwear and other winter wear. In addition, it was sunny and the relative humidity was 66 percent. The barometric pressure was 30.27 around 12: 45 p.m., and it dropped to 30.21 around 3:45 p.m.

The solunar calendar indicated that the best fishing times began at 1:24 p.m. and ended at 3:24 p.m.  We fished through the entire two hours, and the fishing was fruitful, but it was also fruitful during the hour before the best fishing times commenced.

The reservoir looked to be slightly more than a foot below normal. The water clarity was besmeared by an algae bloom.  (Because the wind was light, we used the transom trolling motor rather than the bow-mounted one. The motor on the transom electric trolling is deeper in the water than the one on the bow, and we could not see the propeller or the motor.)  We fished along the southern fringe of the warm-water plume, where the surface temperature was 51 degrees.  We  fished along the northern edge of the warm-water plume were the surface temperature was 45 degrees. And we fished near the heart of the plume, where the surface temperature was 53.9 degrees, and the heart of the plume was several hundred yards to the north of the warm-water outlet. The whereabouts and size  of the warm-water plume can fluctuate from day to day, depending the amount of electricity that is generated and the intensity and direction of the wind.

We caught 15 largemouth bass from the western edge of a submerged creek channel that meanders across a mud flat on the west side of the reservoir. Then for about two hours, we fished two bluffs, where the surface temperature ranged from 53.9 degrees to 52 degrees, and from these bluffs, we extracted 35 largemouth bass, including one that weighed five pounds, 14 ounces, as well as two four-pounders and two three-pounders. After we fished those bluffs, we plied two mud flats where a submerged creek channel crisscrosses them, but we failed to catch a largemouth bass. We also fished a mud-flat point that didn't yield a largemouth bass. We finished our outing by quickly fishing two bluffs long the southern perimeter of the warm-water plume, and we eked out only two largemouth bass. All of the bluffs that we fished were along the western side of this reservoir.

We caught four largemouth bass on a Z-Man's PB&J Rain MinnowZ on a blue 1/16-ounce Gopher jig. We caught one largemouth bass on a Z-Man's pearl Finesse ShadZ on a chartreuse 1/16-ounce Gopher jig.  All of the rest of the largemouth bass, crappie, channel catfish, white bass and wiper were caught on a green-pumpkin Finesse ShadZ on either a chartreuse 1/32-ounce Gopher jig or a blue 1/16-ounce Gopher jig.

The best retrieve was a subtle swim-glide-and-shake retrieve that also incorporated a few hops and bounces on the bottom.  We also caught a few on the drag-and-deadstick motif. We caught only one on the initial drop. All of the fish were caught in two to six feet of water.

Before our trip, Perret had spent part of the morning working with Brent Chapman of Lake Quivira, Kansas. Perret is Chapman's physical and pain-free trainer, and Chapman is in the midst of training for the 2012 Bassmaster tournament season.  At the end of their workout session, Chapman gave Perret one of his new flutter spoons to test.  Perret rigged this gargantuan spoon on one of his big casting rods, but we started catching largemouth bass straightway with our Midwest finesse tactics, and neither Perret nor I gave Chapman's new spoon a whirl.

January 19 log

A week ago on Jan. 11 and 12 Clyde Holscher of  Topeka, Kansas, reported that the ice was off at a 416-acre community reservoir.  Then the ice reappeared on Jan. 13 and 14.  On Jan. 19  Holscher reported that the ice was melting again, and there was an angler afloat. We suspect the ice  will reappear on Jan. 20 and 21 as area temperatures plummet again.

Dave Weroha of Kansas City, Duc Pham of Kansas City and Bob Gum of Kansas City fished the 2,600-acre power-plant reservoir that was featured in the Jan.6, 7 and 15 logs. They fished from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

He wrote: "It was a surprisingly tough day, eking out 21 largemouth bass, one white bass, one freshwater drum and one carp. We failed to land seven largemouth bass. The largest largemouth bass weighed only two pounds. Today was the perfect outing for finesse because power fishing would have yielded virtually no fish.

"Duc asked other anglers at the marina how their day went and the unanimous response was 'we only caught a couple, it was slow.'  Other anglers near the bluffs echoed the same response.