You go to your favorite fishing hole. About 5 feet deep and plenty of structure, your goto place for largemouth bass. It is the middle of winter and you go cast your line out to this favourite honey-hole of yours. You fish all day with not one bite. What happened? Well, I am going to tell you. There two things that effect bass drastically in the winter, the epilimniom and the metabolism of the bass.

Epilimniom, what's that? Has anyone ever told you that largemouth bass live most of their lives in water that is 5 feet deep or less? Well, they are right... somewhat. Through spring and summer the first 5 feet of water is the warmest depth and is called the epilimniom. The epilimniom is formed by the sun warming the water and the surface air temperature. During the late fall the weather becomes cold and forces the epilimniom to sink to deeper water. Now, the coldest part of the lake is the first 10 feet deep, and the warmest part of the lake is 10 feet + deep. So in early winter and late fall bass can be near any structure in 10feet + deep water. During mid-winter and late winter, though, oxygen levels decrease in deeper water causing the fish to find a happy medium between warmth and oxygen levels. Usually this will be around 10 feet.

Ok, now what about the metabolism of largemouth bass. In the winter, or when the temperature of the water becomes cold, the bass' metabolism lowers greatly, forcing them to eat only small traces of whatever floats by them. Use small soft plastic lures rigged split shot, or jig head style coloured smoke or any other subtle colour

Now lets recap: