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Colder Weather Fishing Strategies
This time of year the temperatures can tumble and make you feel like you never left your home state up north. The winds seem to be always blowing and making the upper 50's temperature feel even colder. When temperatures drop, the shallow water lagoon fish are there somewhere, but they are usually sluggish to bite. What to do? A strategy for finding, hooking and catching Central Florida cold water fish needs to be developed and used for a successful fishing adventure. With this in mind, we must first determine and decide just how cold the water is, which is relatively easy, but figuring out if trout, snook, redfish and tarpon will strike baits based on the amount of drop in water temperatures they can tolerate, is not so easy. Did you know that snook will die if they cannot find water above 60 degrees. Redfish are more tolerant of colder water temperatures, as are tarpon and trout, but not by very much. All of these fish hole-up in deeper water, where there is some sort of a thermocline, usually with a bit of warmer water that makes it at least somewhat tolerable for basic life support. For fish finding warmer water is a most natural condition and behavior to do. This of course can also mean that these fish are off their feed to a great extent. However, this is not always true and fishing for any species in varying water conditions does not allow for a hard and fast rule to be made. For instance: one day in a given deep water pocket, a school of trout may strike brightly colored jigs and then, with an evening rain storm up-country that changes the water clarity and pH locally, that same hole may still have trout holed up in it, but they may only strike dull colored rubber jig tails, instead of, as they did the day before, bright red or chartreuse colors. Of course, live shrimp is one bait that will work in both situations. During the winter, slowly working a shrimp or jig across a grass bottom, where the fish are holding in the grass or weed cover, may be the only way to entice a strike. In the fall, late spring, or summer, moving a bait closer towards the surface and with a faster lively rhythm may do the trick. This is when top water plugs and small spoons will take fish. Fish are slower in the cold water weather, being cold blooded; their body temperatures fluctuate. For all fish, there are optimum temperatures when they are at their peak performance. But, all fish get somewhat sluggish when their temperatures go down too much or up too much. Keeping in that happy medium can also make for a happy fisherman finding happy feeding, non-distressed fish. Remember "Fish the conditions, not the fish". If a certain species is off it's feed, fish another, trout aren't biting, fish for redfish, redfish are away, fish for sheepshead or black drum. You have to be flexible in fishing different seasons. At the end of a totally unsuccessful day, the angler that insists on "fishing the fish" can excuse it all with "even though we caught nothing, it was a nice day out on the water anyway". Another cold weather tip for shallow water fishing that seems to entice a more sluggish cold water fish to bite, is to tip your jig or weighted lure with a bit of shrimp. Smell plays a big part in fish being turned on to bite when water temperatures are low and there is high turbidity. Work the bait slow and expect to feel more resistance than the actual tug and strike you would be more used to in warmer weather conditions. Fish in a little bit deeper water and try working places where larger fish may be coming and going with the tides. When I refer to shallow water in the Indian River Lagoon, I mean anywhere from a foot deep to about 4-6 feet in depth. Recently, I fished in about 10 feet of water. This spot, like so many others in late spring, summer and very early fall, are rarely good spots to fish. With cooler temperatures upon us, there were some seriously heavy feeding fish hell-bent on storing up fat for colder times ahead. So the next time you put on that flannel shirt and windbreaker and go out fishing , remember, "Fish the conditions, not the fish".
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