
Thoughts of fishing often are diminished when wintertime cold weather locks in over the South.
And then you get that special day or two.
You know what I mean: An unseasonable warm front rolls in and those bone-chilling walks to the mailbox suddenly feel more akin to springtime.
Your mind shifts to your tackle and the boat you have stored away. You think about how warmups trigger bassin’ activity during the spring and just know that somewhere on your favorite lake the bass are munchin’.
It’s got to be the same scenario, right? The unseasonably warm spell and bright sunshine surely awaken winter bass from their lethargic state and have them prepping to spawn and eagerly stuffing their guts again.
Well, not exactly, say some of the Bassmaster Elite Series pros who have firsthand knowledge.
“Those kind of days make you feel like you want to go to the lake, but you have to ask yourself, ‘How much has changed [in] the past 48 hours?’” says Alabama pro Gerald Swindle. “‘Did that warm front really transition the fish to thinking about spawning and make them move shallow?’”
The answer, he adds, is no.

“That’s the most confusing thing about wintertime for anglers,” he explains. “Just because we feel good in that warm sunshine doesn’t mean the fish have made any pronounced moves to where we think they should be.”
In other words, you may think it’s a good buzzbait day, but it’s not, he adds.
Former Elite Series pro Bradley Hallman of Oklahoma concurs with Swindle’s assessment.
“For the most part, those warm, winter days make us feel good, but they don’t influence the bass that much,” he says. “Believe me, I’m a bank beater by nature, but I’ve proven many times that those fish don’t run to the bank.”
That doesn’t mean you can’t catch them. The fish still have to eat, but generally not in the places where you think they should be or with the techniques you want to use.
“The bass know it’s still winter and aren’t going to stray far from their wintering areas,” Hallman explains. “I’m convinced they are a lot like deer when it comes to the rut; the shallow transition has more to do with length of daylight and angle of the sun than it does with actual air temperature.”
After a warm day or two, Swindle says the fish will reposition near or over the same deeper water where they winter on most Southern lakes.
“They will move up and suspend in the water column to absorb that heat,” he says. “That’s where you have to rig a bait that falls slowly; I like the 1/4-ounce Buckeye Ballin’ Out Jig with a Zoom Z Craw Jr.

“You need to give them time to see it and react. Remember, they typically aren’t overly aggressive despite the warming trend. The upper layer of water may be warmer, but it’s still cold where they are hanging out.”
At Smith Lake, he says, bass will move up in the water column around bluff banks. You might catch them down in 25 feet before the warm front but “after a few warm days, you pitch that shaky head in the same spot and it won’t sink 3 feet before you get a bite.”
The Tennessee River system, Swindle notes, is one place where they can get very shallow during a warm front.
“For example, on Guntersville they will sit in 8 to 9 feet of water and in the grass during winter, but if you get a sunny, warm day, they will go shallower behind the grass and sit with their bellies on the clay bottom that warms up fast. They won’t move far from wintering areas. They will move shallower, but they won’t go crazy. And they may or may not bite.”
The best shallow fishing will be found on the main lake — not up the creeks or in the pockets — and on points or rock walls close to deep water.
Once, during the colder months, Swindle was filming with Rapala, one of his sponsors, and began fishing a shallow, hard spot on a Guntersville main lake point.
“It was crazy; we probably caught 40 or 50 in less than a foot of water on a lipless crankbait and a DT6,” he describes. “But we still had to fish them slowly.”
In Oklahoma, Hallman targets those areas out of the current that offer vertical structure. That could be standing timber, a channel drop or a channel swing.
“That’s where I find the better fish,” he says. “The bass will be channel-oriented and around baitfish.”
In his part of the country, the umbrella rig combined with forward-facing sonar produces some of the biggest fish of the year.
“The trophy hunters whom I know love this time of year. They go out and target 10-pounders, which are not very common in our state,” Hallman says. “But they catch ’em.”
The Oklahoman says one of his favorite techniques for fishing lowland reservoirs on winter-day warmups is a throwback to yesteryear.
He’ll get over the deep fish and work a tailspinner, similar to the Mann’s Bait Co. Little George. He doesn’t remember the name of the ones he prefers, but he gets them through Academy Sports + Outdoors. Unlike the Little George, the line passes through the body of the one he likes and attaches to a treble hook.
“That thing is great because it gets deep quickly, and when you pick it up, that tail spins and it flutters back down, and that’s when they hit it,” he describes. “You can cover a lot of water with it.”
Like Hallman, fellow Oklahoman and Bassmaster Elite Series pro Jason Christie says forward-facing sonar has made winter fishing a lot easier for anglers.

“Before LiveScope, the warmer days seemed to be tougher to find and catch big fish, but now with the new technology, it’s made it easier,” says Christie.
He says the fish tend to suspend and really aren’t in an eating mood. They just seem to move up where they can find the warmer water, relax and soak up the sun.
“With LiveScope, we can target those fish, but it’s still tough to get one to bite because he’s in a relaxed mode,” he says.
When there is little wind, he picks up the Yum FF Sonar Minnow that he used to win the 2022 Bassmaster Classic at Lake Hartwell.
“You need something real finesse-y, and [you] swim it over the fish’s head [to] make him bite,” he says. “Oftentimes, they don’t want to bite, but if you work it over his head without spooking him, you can make him bite it.”
The 3-inch Sonar Minnow is fashioned on a 3/16-ounce Yum FF Sonar Jig with Sunline braid and an 8-pound Sunline fluorocarbon leader.
“I want to cast past the fish and let it fall, but always keeping it above his head,” Christie explains. “The first cast may come 3 feet over him, and subsequent casts will be a little closer. The fish will either bite or swim away. The key is to not spook him right away and give him a chance to see the bait.”

Spots like it warm
While most pros say that a wintertime warming trend has minimal impact on bass, Bassmaster Elite Series angler Marc Frazier says good things can happen when fishing for spotted bass.
“I really like it when it warms up,” he insists. “I think it pulls bigger spotted bass to the bank. You can put together a really good stringer of spots on the Georgia lakes where I fish.”
He says an angler can have a fun day during those unseasonable warmups by fishing shallow on lakes like Georgia’s Lanier and West Point.
“Actually, there are a lot of fish to be had shallow all winter long,” says Frazier. “Most guys are out there fishing the deeper areas and ditches, but I’m going down the bank catching them shallow.”
Of course, he adds, those fish disappear when the water turns cold again.
During the warming period, Frazier targets banks that are a little steeper — banks where the boat is sitting in 12 to 14 feet of water but in a castable distance to the shoreline.

“I’m looking for those transitional shorelines not far from where they want to spawn but near deep water,” he describes. “It’s usually on the main river, near the mouth of a creek or the deepest channel swing on a main lake pocket where there are plenty of rocks near shore.”
He usually fishes a crankbait slowly over the rocks, opting for a Spro RkCrawler or a Spro Little John MD.
“That’s probably my favorite way to catch them under those conditions,” says Frazier.
Originally appeared in Bassmaster Magazine 2025.