If you picture the perfect conditions for chasing largemouth bass on the fly, the image you would conjure up would not take place during the dead of winter. Cold water, bad weather, and lethargic fish — winter seems like the time of year when you would rather stay at home and clean your lines. While most of California, with the exception of high-elevation areas, is exempt from intense winters that shut down the fishing, the change to colder temperatures does significantly change the behaviors of such a temperature-sensitive fish as largemouth bass. You can still follow the bass from their fall feeding areas to their winter haunts, but subtle changes in your fishing tactics will help bring success, as will understanding what bass do during the cold months.
Bass fishing during the winter does not have to be a struggle. Some of my most memorable days on the water have been during January and February. Winter is a great time to target the biggest bass in our lakes, and by finding places where bass can easily feed while spending the least amount of energy, you can improve your chances of hooking the largest lunker of the year. Paying attention to the weather is never more important than during the winter, though, because fronts move in with a greater frequency, and changes in the weather influence the behavior of the fish and the techniques needed to succeed.
Bass Behavior in the Winter
During the winter, cooling water temperatures drive bass out of a lake’s shallow creek arms and into deep water, where they hunker down for the season. Their metabolism slows, and they are less willing to chase prey in order to feed. Knowing this helps locate groups of fish, because they will be concentrated in areas where they can hold in deep water, yet use little energy to visit shallower waters to feed. That means most of the fish will be located in deep areas (20 feet or more) along cliff edges, river channel bends, dam faces, and other deep-water access points where can they move up and down in the water column and efficiently access the shallows.
This is where map reading comes in handy. Using a topographic map of the underwater environment (Navionics maps, either on the mobile app or the website, are comprehensive and inexpensive), you can find areas of shallow water close to deep drop-offs, mostly on the main lake itself. While you can find fish in the creek arms, especially after a rain, most of the productive winter fishing takes place in the main lake body. Look for sharp turns in old river channels, underwater cliffs that drop from flats, and deep rocks close to the dam face if fishing a reservoir. These are areas where the fish merely need to rise up in the water column to feed, then swim straight down to get back to deeper water.
Once you’ve found a few fishy areas, pay attention to how the water temperature changes based on wind direction, sunshine, and weather systems moving through. You want to find the warmest water in the lake. The water around rocks or trees sticking out of the water’s surface close to deep-water access will warm slightly faster during the day than other locations in the lake and thus attract fish as the temperature increases. Wind plays a huge part in where the warm surface water moves: shallow areas warm faster than deeper water, and if the wind is blowing out of the shallows into open water, the fish will be farther offshore than when the wind is pushing that warm water shallower. An angler’s best friend during winter is a thermometer, which can allow you to chase the warmer water as it moves around the lake. I have often seen areas that are devoid of life, but as soon as the wind shifts and brings the warmer water back into the shallower access points, suddenly the bite is on. Be patient, fish strategically, and stay focused — the active windows during this time of year are short, but often quite predictable when you figure them out. Once you’ve found an area where the fish are hanging out, the good news is that they will generally stay in these locations for a few months. And, once you figure out which time of day the fish move into certain locations to feed, you can find some of the most consistent fishing of the year.
Gear and Flies
Winter is a good time to simplify your fly selection and pick up a handful of confidence patterns that cover a wide range of situations. Usually I bring two rods when heading out to chase largemouths in the winter, one with a sink-tip line for crayfish and leech patterns (I like the way the floating portion imparts a jigging motion as I retrieve the fly, and it can help with strike detection) and one with an intermediate line to fish big Game Changer–style flies.
Crayfish patterns should be simple and present a strong profile. Most of these flies are fished on the bottom, and even with a heavy weed guard, you’re likely to lose a high percentage of them. Red rabbit strips make good material for claws, and to make sure they spread apart when the fly is stopped, I put a dab of UV glue between the strips. Throw a hackle over a flash chenille body and add a generous sprinkling of rubber legs behind lead eyes, and you’ve got the best crayfish imitation money can buy and no heartache when you inevitably lose it. If you’re fishing in areas of heavy brush, you can add a simple weed guard with two strands of 40-pound-test stiff mono, each strand bent in the middle and attached to the front of the fly by curing UV resin over the mono. This will keep you from losing flies on smaller snags, but you should still be prepared to lose many flies on the harder wood branches and big rocks that will push through the weed guard.
Leeches can be as simple or complicated as you want them to be, and most trout anglers already have at least a few in their boxes. I like to fish unweighted leeches, tied using a wrap of faux rabbit fur with a contrasting dubbing head. A rust body with a purple head makes a fantastic combination in clear water, while black with chartreuse works better in dirty water. Match the size to the leeches in your lakes — a size 6 is usually a good starting point for my waters, and the fish you land may spit out leeches they’ve been eating, cluing you in on the preferred size.
My absolute favorite fly to fish during the winter, however, is a large, 8-to-10inch Game Changer that imitates trout, suckers, baby bass, even pikeminnows. I generally tie them with homemade dubbing brushes that shed water easily, and during the winter, I use tails made of feathers collared around a small f lash wrap at the end of an articulated fish-spine, which gives the tail an enticingly realistic action, even when fished slowly. Silicone glue spread over the head of the fly helps give the fly a slower fall because it traps air underneath, and it gives a good swim on a slow retrieve because it blocks all water moving through the head material, pushing water and improving side-to-side action. Silicone also makes the fly more durable, which is very helpful when you spend one to two hours per fly when tying them. Just remember to let them cure for 24 hours before fishing them.
Fishing Tactics
If there’s one word to sum up what your main strategy for winter should be, it is slow. Everything you do should be slower than at other times of the year: you should fish slower and move slower. Also, the takes will be slower.
As the water cools, the fish get more and more lethargic and less likely to chase fast-moving prey. Thus, to be effective during the colder months, you need to slow your presentation as much as you can. Whether fishing a crayfish imitation, a big trout-imitating Game Changer, or a leech pattern, you should be fishing the fly as slowly as possible. Because the fish will want to spend as little energy as they can to acquire food, your job as an angler is to offer them an easy meal and often a meal that fills the stomach in one bite.
A good way to visualize how you should be covering water this time of year is by picturing a radius around your fly representing how far a fish will move to eat the fly. A bigger fly gets a bigger radius, and a smaller fly gets a smaller one. Warmer water gives you a bigger radius, and the opposite with cooler water. During the winter, this radius is smaller, even with bigger flies, meaning you need to cover water in smaller increments, as opposed to during warmer weather, when you could cover an area with fewer casts, because the fish would move farther for the fly.
Jig-style crayfish imitations are best fished by slowly crawling them on the bottom when the water is cold. A slow figure-eight retrieval with your fingers will move the fly ever so slowly along the bottom. A deadly trick is simply to stop the fly every now and then. When you start the retrieve again, you have a fish on.
My favorite way to fish leeches is to use an intermediate or sink-tip line (depending on depth), get tight to the fly after casting, and feel the take as the fly slowly sinks down in the water column. When the fly is tied with neutrally buoyant faux rabbit strips, it will be pulled down by the line, making for an enticing fall in the water column, and it will sink level horizontally, giving you the same profile as a balanced leech without the buzz kill of staring at and casting an indicator setup, as with the float-n-fly tactics that are popular for spotted bass. Count how deep the fly sinks when you get a bite to figure out at what depth fish might be suspending, and you’ll generally be able to find more fish at the same depth in other locations in the lake.
During the winter, I like to make a long cast along drop-offs and likely structures with a big Game Changer and let the fly sink, either using an intermediate or a full sinking line, depending on the depth of the area I’m targeting. I work the fly slowly, imagining that a big bass may follow out of interest in such a big bite. Then, halfway or so through the retrieve, I gently jerk the fly, which makes it abruptly change its action. This creates some slack in the line just through the rod tip, and sometimes when you do this, you might see the line just ever so slightly straighten back. When that happens, set the hook and fight a lunker largemouth that you’ll not forget anytime soon. A big bass during the winter will surprise you with how subtle the take can be on such a big fly. Other times, you’ll be retrieving the fly slowly along likely holding areas, then suddenly see some slack form in the previously tight line. That’s because occasionally, a bass will take the fly and move gently in the same direction you were retrieving the fly, and that’s when paying attention to the little things can reap big rewards.
Becoming a Meteorologist
Watching the weather closely during the winter is just as important for planning a trip for bass in lakes as it is when monitoring coastal steelhead stream flows. Instead of monitoring for rain and watching the stream gauges, focus on the general weather trends, front systems moving in, and air pressure.

Often more important than the weather the day of fishing is a stretch of consistent temperatures. A week of similar weather is better than one day of perfect weather. During the colder months, bass use a series of similar days to feed and seem to become more and more consistently active as the stretch of similar weather continues.
As a front system moves in, the day just before or the same day that the system arrives can offer some of the most fantastic fishing you’ll experience for bass. Just as the pressure is about to drop, the bass feel a need to feed, because once the system moves through, the change in pressure generally pushes fish deep and makes them less willing to move around to hunt prey. But the hours right before this happens can lead to some of the best big-bass action of the year.
Closely watching the weather also allows you to anticipate your fishing tactics in the coming days. A warming trend allows you to fish your fly with a bit more action than during cooling trends.
During big rain events, when the water level of the reservoirs rises, the fish will push shallow into newly flooded brush and other structures, providing a welcome change of pace from the usual deeper-water fishing during the winter.
Learning from Conventional Tackle Anglers
In many fly-fishing circles, it might seem taboo to learn from conventional-gear anglers, with their treble hooks and casting reels. Oh the horror! The fact is, there’s not much information out there in the fly-fishing world about fishing for largemouth bass and certainly not much that pertains to the deep reservoirs of California. But when you start to look into the extensive world of conventional-tackle bass angling in this state, there’s a lot to be learned.
A number of my fishing partners in California fish only lures, not flies, and I make a point of observing and learning from what they are doing when we go out. One of the things I noticed many years ago was the culture of fishing big swimbaits that is prevalent in these reservoir fisheries that contain big bass and stocked rainbow trout. These swimbait casters with their 6-to-14-inch lures that imitate trout often catch the biggest bass in the lakes where they fish, the really big fish that have learned that a large, protein-filled snack is an easy way to put on weight with minimal effort. These swimbaits can be imitated and even improved on with big flies such as the Game Changer, bulkhead-style flies, and other big trout or baitfish imitations. (Editor’s note: for an innovative take on swimbaits, see Robert Ketley’s Livebait pattern in this issue’s “Catchy Ideas” column.)
Another aspect of fishing conventional gear that is highly effective during the cold-weather months is jig fishing, applied to fly fishing by using sink-tip lines and crayfish f lies. During the winter, I’ve seen more fish caught by conventional-gear guys on a crawdad-shaped jig slowly dragged on the bottom than by any other technique. Bass simply can’t resist the prospects of an easy freshwater lobster meal when it slowly walks by their haunts. When fly fishing, imitate this by slowly dragging the fly on the bottom. You will feel every contour change when doing this correctly. If you start moving the fly and feel no resistance, you haven’t let it sink far enough down. Let it drop some more, and once you feel the bottom, you’re in the right zone.
Enjoying the Winter
The fact that we fly fishers living in California can fish year-round, enjoying some fantastic fishing every month, shouldn’t just be taken for granted. You have to go do it to appreciate it. And it’s hard to beat the solitude of the winter months out on the reservoirs of California. Add to that the chance of landing big bass in beautiful settings, and you’ve got the stuff dreams are made of. The moment that spring arrives, the lakes fill back up with fair-weather bass anglers and, worst of all, water-skiers. So take advantage of the peaceful and crisp California winter days on the water and catch some bass.