By Jimmy Tomazinis
mail@floridanewsline.com
Brrrr, it’s cold! But not for too much longer hopefully. February is traditionally the last of the stranglehold that winter puts upon us from year to year. Come March, the birds will be singing loud, welcoming new leaves and flowers to the world, but let’s not wish away February just yet. There’s more wintertime fishing fun to be had.
February is a month to pay close attention to water temperatures since bass and specks will be waiting for them to warm up enough for them to move up into cover to spawn. The closer the temperatures get to the numbers they want, the closer they will stage to those places.
Those “numbers” are always up for debate, and this is not an exact science, but 67 – 68 degrees would be a good bet. That’s not to say that fish won’t spawn in lower temperatures. After all, they will decide when the time is right. You just need to keep an eye out.
One of my favorite ways to fish for specks this time of year is to fish minnows on slip floats at varying depths in deeper water, while throwing a jig towards the bank and working it back to the boat. The minnows will catch the fish still waiting to move into staging areas, but you can use the jig as a search bait looking for fish that have already moved up there. On many days, the jig has found me bigger fish between the boat and the bank. Once you find them you can move up with the minnows and thoroughly cover those areas.
Bass will also be staging near spawning locations this month. Points, inside bends, and creek mouths are all good areas to look. Slow trolling shiners along the vegetation in these places is a good way to locate the bass. If you find one, then there’s likely others there for the same reason. It’s a trophy hunt though, so don’t expect big numbers.
I also want to put a little selfish conservation plug out there since we’re talking about catching fish during spawning periods. This is the most crucial time for them to reproduce so that we might have lots of fish to catch next year and the year after that and so on. Only keep what you need and handle fish gently that you plan to release. Let’s all do our part. Tight lines.
