Novembers of the Past

Since 2011, we have published 46,900 words about how, when, and where Midwest finesse anglers fish in November.

Many of these words were graced by the insights and logs of Rick Allen of Dallas, Texas; Terry Bivins of Lebo, Kansas; Terry Claudell of Overland Park, Kansas; Steve Desch of Topeka, Kansas; Brent Frazee of Parkville, Missouri; Bob Gum of Kansas City, Kansas; Clyde Holscher of Topeka; Casey Kidder of Topeka; Ralph Manns of Rockwall, Texas; Mike Poe of Siler City, North Carolina; Chris Rohr of Overland Park; Brian Waldman of Coatesville, Indiana; Brian Watson of Papillion, Nebraska; and Dave Weroha of Kansas City, Kansas. Some of the words were extracted from my logs that I began compiling in 2003.

Most of the words focus on the pursuit of largemouth bass, and that is because the shallow-water smallmouth bass fishing peters out in November across northeastern Kansas, and the only exception to that occurs at one of the power-plant reservoirs. Before 2011 we used to spend a lot of time simultaneously fishing for largemouth bass and temperate bass in northeastern Kansas and central Missouri during November, but the white bass population has declined so dramatically during the past several years that we rarely pursue them. But at several northeastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri reservoirs, we do spend some time doing what we call bass fishing for trout. When we pursued  trout, we primarily employed a 2 1/2-inch Z-Man's ZinkerZ affixed to a 1/16-ounce Gopher Tackle Mushroom Head jig. We used a variety of colors of the ZinkerZ: bubble gum, green pumpkin, Junebug, PB&J, and pearl. The Gopher jig was usually painted red.

In our column entitled "A Month-by-Month Guide to Midwest Finesse for Bass," we noted that the surface temperature at our northeastern Kansas reservoirs on November 1 is 56 degrees. It drops to about 50 degrees during the middle of the month. It is around 46 degrees at month's end.

Winter is in the offing. We will be confounded by spells of freezing rain, sleet and snow, which can make conditions insurmountable even for the most ardent largemouth bass anglers.

On average, northeastern Kansas has about an inch of precipitation in November. The average temperature is 43 degrees, but it can be as cold as nine degrees and as warm as 84 degrees.

By the end of the month, some Midwest finesse anglers in Kansas begin spending a lot of their outings at the power-plant reservoirs.

Below are the Internet links to the 46,900 words that we have written about how, when, and where Midwest finesse anglers catch and do not catch black bass during November in Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, and Texas.

(1) http://www.in-fisherman.com/midwest-finesse/a-month-by-month-guide-to-midwest-finesse-for-bass/.

(2) http://www.in-fisherman.com/midwest-finesse/an-addendum-to-the-month-by-month-guide-to-midwest-finesse-november/.

(3) http://www.in-fisherman.com/midwest-finesse/midwest-finesse-fishing-november-2013/.

(4) http://www.in-fisherman.com/bass/midwest-finesse-fishing-november-2014/.

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