Winter has arrived, and as usual, the tougher bass fishing with it. I usually spend a lot more time crappie fishing than bass fishing in the winter, but with the Cedar Creek water level over 3 1/2 feet low, fishing has been tough at my winter crappie spots too. Some of them I can’t reach at all with the lake this low. Between the holidays and doctor appointments, I’d only gotten out once a week the past few weeks, and while I’d caught enough crappie to keep the freezer stocked, and a few bass as well, the fishing had been what I would call tough. I did manage a 4.16 pound bass last week.

But the weather had been milder lately, with water surface temps back up to 53 and 54 degrees, fishing was better this week. I fished mid lake Monday and caught 11 bass. Tuesday I was on the lower lake and caught 8 more bass. 19 bass in one week in mid January is not bad fishing, in my books. I didn’t catch any really big bass either day, but a bunch of solid, chunky fish. The weather has turned colder now, so the bass fishing is bound to get tougher again. I need to scout those crappie some more.

Last week’s 4.16 pound bass.

One of Tuesday’s pretty fish.

I managed to get out fishing on Tuesday and Thursday this week. It was pretty chilly both days, but Thursday sunshine warmed it up a bit in the afternoon. Fishing was tough. Tuesday’s wind kept me from being able to fish some of my lower lake spots. I managed to catch nine bass, the best of which weighed 3.62 pounds. Some of the morning water surface temperature was just 51 degrees. That’s getting close to winter water.

Two days and one cold front later, on mid lake, there was again lots of 51 degree water, and for most of the day, the bite was even tougher. Early afternoon, I had only managed to catch two bass, and no other fish at all. With the sun warming things up a bit later, I managed another seven bass the last couple of hours of fishing. Best bass of the day was a 4.46 pounder. As I type this Sunday night, the forecast is for a hard freeze tonight with lows in the 20’s, so I’m thinking winter fishing has arrived. I’m still going to fish for bass some, but crappie fishing may be my mainstay for the next couple of months.

Thursday’s 4.46 pound bass.

It was another good week of Cedar Creek bass fishing last week. I went on Wednesday and Friday, the lower lake Wednesday and mid lake Friday. With all the cooler weather we’ve had lately, the surface temperature had fallen to 54 degrees by Friday. I caught 16 bass Wednesday and 14 bass on Friday. My best fish were 4 pounders on both days, a 4.62 on Wednesday and a 4.42 on Friday. I caught a bunch of other chunky fish on Friday, including 3.72, 3.52, and 3.26 pounders. Cedar Creek just has a lot of healthy, chunky black bass this year. They do put up a great fight, especially on the finesse tackle I’m using.

Just like last year, with the water surface temperature now in the mid 50’s, I’m catching a lot more bass on rocks, and a lot fewer on boat docks. It’s a really noticeable movement of the fish. I watch that lake surface temperature pretty closely this time of year. As long as it stays above 50 degrees, bass fishing will remain decent, but once it gets below 50 degrees, bass fishing can be very tough. The Ned rigs I’m using are very good cold water baits though, and I’m going to keep fishing them some this winter when the water gets that cold, to see if I can improve my winter technique. You have to fish the baits so slowly when the water’s that cold though, that you can’t cover much water, so you need to be very good about picking your spots, if you are to catch much. I’m sure I’ll chase the crappie quite a bit this winter too, though. With the lake this low, crappie fishing will be tougher too, but the winter crappie bite is usually a lot better than the winter bass bite. Just when the water will get that cold remains to be seen, and depends on the weather during a particular winter, but I would expect it to fall into the 40’s by late this month, or early January. We’ll see.

Wednesday’s best bass, a 4.62 pounder.

And Fridays best, weighing 4.42 pounds.

The bass bite on Cedar Creek has been pretty consistent the last couple of weeks, with great fishing on the lower lake, and tough fishing at mid lake. On Monday, November 17th, I caught 16 bass on the lower lake, and 4 big crappie. One thing about bass fishing docks with finesse baits, you can also catch some big crappie. Small bass baits are also big crappie baits. Best bass of the day weighed 4.52 pounds. I kept the 3 best crappie for dinner.

On Wednesday, the 19th, I only managed 9 bass mid lake, but once again, caught some really nice size crappie. I kept 3 more, so did a good job of restocking my freezer that week.

This Tuesday, I visited the lower lake again, and caught 32 bass. As usual, I caught some fish in a Finesse TRD, but the best bait of the day was a 4″ Jerk Shadz. Shaking my rod as I retrieved it did the trick. Yesterday, I fished at mid lake, and found a very tough bite. The wind blew much harder than forecast, and I just couldn’t get many bites in the areas that I was able to fish. There were lots of people on docks, to be expected on Black Friday, and that kept me from fishing some of my more productive docks. I only caught 3 bass, 2 crappie, 1 drum, 1 hybrid, and a handful of white bass. But yesterday’s 3 bass were nice ones. Two went over 3 pounds, and the other was a 5.46 pounder. I won’t complain too much about any day where I catch a 5 pounder.

A 4.52 pound bass from November 17th.

Yesterday’s 5.46 pound beauty.

Back from vacation in Florida, I was eager to get back to some Cedar Creek fishing this week. A big cold front last week had cooled things off a lot. Surface temperatures on the lake went from ~75 degrees two weeks ago to 61 degrees Wednesday morning. Fall fishing is here. And my best fishing last fall was at mid lake, so that’s where I went Wednesday. But the bass fishing was still tough for me. I bass fished most of the day and only caught five bass. I stopped by a couple of crappie spots and caught 6 nice crappie in short order, so the crappie bite is still there mid lake, but I don’t have a good explanation for why the bass fishing is so much tougher than last fall.

On yesterday (Friday) I decided to spend the day on the lower lake. Besides the tough day I’d had Wednesday mid lake, the south wind was really blowing yesterday, and with a big south wind, the lower lake is easier for me to fish, and more productive. That proved to be a wise decision. The wind blew even harder than forecast, but in spite of a very slow morning of fishing, the bite really took off just before lunch, and I ended up catching 22 bass before heading home. Best fish of the day was a beautiful bass that weighed 4.20 pounds, unless you want to count the ~8 pound hybrid that bit my Ned rig. Most fish were caught on a finesse TRD on a Ned rig, but shaking the rod fishing a jig and Jerk Shadz version of the Ned rig caught a few, as did a new experimental finesse version of a Carolina rig I’m calling a bridge rig. More on the bridge rig in another post, once I get more dialed in with it, but it really is looking like a new bait I’ll be using quite a bit.

A really nice crappie from Wednesday’s trip.

The 4.20 pound bass I caught from a Cedar Creek dock yesterday.

Fishing on Cedar Creek has really been hit or miss for me these last few weeks, as summer tried to hang on. Morning water surface temps had been a little below 80 degrees, but with temps in or near the 90’s every day, last week was the first time this fall that surface temps stayed below 80 in the afternoon. Finally, with this week’s two cold fronts, the surface temp yesterday was 73 degrees in the morning, and only rose to 75 degrees. That’s finally more like fall temperatures. Crappie fishing has picked up, and I had been catching some crappie in less than 10 feet of water regularly. When that happens in the fall, crappie fishing is going to be good for a while, on days when the wind allows it.

But bass fishing has remained tougher. I’m finally seeing some better fish, but the numbers aren’t there at all, except for a couple of days when I caught a lot of small bass. But there are plenty of other fish to be caught. On Tuesday a week ago, I caught 9 bass, 7 crappie, 14 channel cats, 3 white bass, and 2 drum. All were caught on either a Ned rig or a crappie jig, a reminder that almost any kind of fish will hit these two baits. One of the bass weighed 4.16 pounds, and a couple of others were over 3 pounds.

Last Thursday was tougher for bass. I managed just 4 bass, but 10 crappie, 9 catfish, including a 12 pound blue cat, 5 white bass, and one drum. It’s enough catching that I’m having lots of fun on my trips, but I sure would like to see more nice bass. The bass I’m catching are very shallow, but not there in the numbers that are likely when the water cools down more. On the lower lake Tuesday, I caught 9 bass. Yesterday on mid lake, I once again only caught 4 bass, but one of them weighed 6.02 pounds. I’d sure like to be catching more bass, but I won’t complain too much about a tough day when that tough day includes a 6 pounder. And I caught 15 crappie yesterday, most of them really nice ones. All of those were 13 feet deep, in deeper water. I didn’t catch any crappie in shallower water. With the lake now almost three feet low, my shallower crappie spots may have become too shallow. Rain is forecast for today and tomorrow. It would be nice to see enough to raise the lake a bit. We’ll see.

A beautiful, healthy 6.02 pound bass I caught at Cedar Creek yesterday.

A number of yesterday’s crappie were really nice ones, like this one.

I got out yesterday on Cedar Creek. By mid August, the crappie fishing that had been so good this summer on Cedar Creek quickly faded. I’ve been getting out on the lake once a week for some crappie fishing since then, but it’s been tough, with catches of just 10 to 12 crappie per trip, so I haven’t been writing up anything for my blog. We had a short cool spell right at the beginning of September, but it quickly warmed back up to the point of having 90’s temperatures again in the afternoons. And the fishing stayed pretty much the same.

But it changed a bit yesterday. The crappie still haven’t left the deeper water they’ve been in, but they are holding more shallow now. 11 feet was the magic depth for them yesterday. I caught 22 keepers, all at that depth. That makes me think the fall move a lot of them make to shallower water will happen soon. As has been the case all summer, my smaller 1/24th oz jigs were what the crappie wanted yesterday. I spent an hour at the beginning of the day checking for a bass bite, but caught nothing.

I caught more nice size crappie yesterday than I have been catching the last few trips.

Besides crappie, fishing a jig around Cedar Creek bridges catches lots of other fish too, including this nice blue cat I caught yesterday.

As well as two of these hybrid stripers.

I’m going to make a second trip this week, tomorrow. I’m going the check out the lower lake. I haven’t been there in a while now, and even though the bass bite probably won’t be happening there either, and the fact that I don’t have warm water crappie spots that are as good as what I have mid lake, I’m still going to spend the day there. If I don’t catch anything worthy of a report here, I’ll just wait until the next good trip to post.

The super hot summer crappie bite continued this week. On Tuesday, a hot day with light winds all day long, I caught 57 keeper crappie. I’m pretty certain that this is the most crappie I’ve ever caught in the middle of summer. Lots of the fish were small keepers, but like has been the case lately, there were a few really nice crappie too. I went fishing again Thursday. There was a pretty stiff wind early Thursday, and Wednesday morning’s storms had muddied the water at bit at my favorite spot, and the bite was quite a bit tougher than Tuesday, especially early. Still, by 1:00 pm when the bite shut off, I had caught 21 keeper crappie. That’s still a great day of crappie fishing, to me.

Tuesday, Cedar Creek’s water level had fallen to 9 inches below normal. Wednesday’s storms raised the lake 1 inch. So the lake is in much better shape than August, last year.

One of Thursday’s nicer crappie.

I got out on Cedar Creek yesterday for some crappie fishing again. It was a shorter than usual fishing day. I stopped and got gas for the boat on the way to the ramp, plus it was another day with afternoon temperatures in the upper 90’s, and besides that, the Texas Rangers were playing at 1:30 in the afternoon, and I decided this would be a good day to come home early and watch them. The freezer is well stocked with crappie from recent trips, so this would be strictly a catch and release day. I ended up being surprised at how many crappie I caught. Even after a longer than usual lunch break, when I headed back to the boat ramp at 1:00, I’d caught 36 keeper crappie. There were lots of small keepers, but a number of really nice size fish too. As usual with crappie in the dog days of summer, they were very finicky, and only wanted smaller crappie jigs. But with the right jig, lowered into the right place, at exactly the right depth (12 feet), they really bit well. I can’t remember ever catching this many crappie on an August day before.

A beauty from yesterday’s trip.

As the weather got hotter and hotter in June, my bass fishing got tougher and tougher, with fewer fish caught and nothing really big. By the end of the month, my catches were minimal enough that I stopped posting anything here. Now, with the dog days here, I have completely switched to crappie fishing. Crappie fishing can also get pretty tough in the hottest part of the year, but at least I can catch a few fish in the heat of the day, while staying in the shade under a bridge while doing it, so that’s what I do.

I got out both Tuesday and Thursday this week. But I certainly can’t complain about the crappie fishing being too tough. I caught 26 keeper crappie Tuesday, and another 20 on Thursday. Tuesday’s fish were all just small keepers, but I did catch a few nicer crappie on Thursday. It was 100 degrees both afternoons, but I was off the water before it got that hot both days. I did fish until 2:00 in the afternoon both days, which is later than I usually stay out when it’s this hot. But I was having a lot of fun, and it wasn’t unbearably hot in the shade of the bridges, so I just kept fishing. I caught the crappie in 13 to 26 feet of water, but they were all caught 12 feet deep. Even the slightest bit deeper or shallower would produce no fish at all. The fish were on rocks or near pilings. Some of the guides start using minnows when it gets this hot, but I stuck with my jigs like I always do, and they worked well. The water surface temperature got up to 90 degrees both days. It’s obviously much cooler 12 feet down. The lake is falling fast and is now 8 inches low. That’s a pretty good level for August 1st, much better than it was last year. I think that has a lot to do with the bite still being this good this late into summer. We’ll see how long it remains good with the lake falling this fast.

A nice size crappie from Thursday’s trip.