Thanksgiving On the Hudson
November 30, 2008
Here's a story of some winter fishing I just did in 34-35 degree water - and the fishing was pretty good! Although this is about the Hudson River, much of what is written about the tackle and techniques here can apply in other winter fishing situations and locations - especially where bigger rivers are involved.
For the Thanksgiving holiday, I had the good fortune to fish two days with Bobby Uhrig. He owns www.MegaStrike.com which offers scent attractant, www.EvolutionLures.com for jigs and www.CavitronLures.com that offers buzzbaits.
Lance Cahoon and Jim Mayberry joined us. The two are on Bobby's pro staff.
John Radamski completed our group. John is president of the New Jersey BASS Federation Nation.
We all met up in the rustic town of Saugerties, New York on Friday morning after Thanksgiving.
Saugerties is on the scenic Hudson River about 100 miles north of Manhattan (New York City).
Saugerties is also near Woodstock where the world-famous rock music festival was held on Yasgur's Farm in 1969.
Esopus Creek spills out through the town of Saugerties on the west bank of New York's Hudson River.
We spent most of our first day fishing the Esopus in Saugerties. Then we trailered the boats for the 12 mile drive further north to the quaint and historic town of Catskill where we would lodge for the night and fish the next day.
Catskill Creek flows through the town of Catskill, about twelve miles above Saugerties. The Rip Van Winkle Bridge spans the Hudson here.
Starting some time in October, fish migrate out of the main river and begin to filter into the Hudson's major side creeks like the Esopus and Catskill Creeks.
They'll winter-over in these and other side creeks that have deep water sanctuaries.
During our trip at the end of November, the surface water temperature in the creeks was a frigid 34 to 35 degrees.
This was the coldest water temperature that any of us had ever fished. The water was barely above the freezing point. We started fishing around 9 o'clock each morning and it was in the twenties. It was too cold to start any earlier as you would have suffered. It was freezing out there, for both the anglers and the fish. We looked around at the scenic Catskill Mountains and there was snow about half way down from the top. Nevertheless, it proved to be a great trip.
Smallmouth, yellow perch, carp and crappie were caught with sporadic consistency throughout the day. For some unexplainable reason, largemouth were conspicuous by their absence. It's possible that the near-freezing water had put the largemouth in a funk. Fortunately, the smallmouth and other game species would get active in brief flurries during which several could be caught within minutes of each other. Such feeding flurries were followed by longer lulls in the action. Still, there were rewarding flurries of activity that occurred randomly throughout the day, keeping our interest.
Most of the smallmouth had a fine layer of mud sticking to the protective slime coat on their bellies. One can speculate they were propped on their bellies on the bottom, fairly inactive most of the time.
The short and sporadic intervals when a few fish were caught, coincided with the presence of large schools of baitfish. Presumably these were alewife or herring shoals being marked on the electronics. One can presume bass and other gamefish would attack these dense bait schools from time to time throughout the day. The bait did not always stay in the same area, but seemed to come and go. It's possible the bait was moving with the tidal current in the creeks, however slight.
Bass were not always caught every time that large quantities of bait was present - we marked a lot of bait when we did not get any bites.
Still, the presence of bait seemed key. When bait readings got scarce on the electronics, absolutely no fish were caught. Come back through the same areas a little later when bait was marked, and chances were good you'd get a couple of bass to bite. So there certainly was a correlation between bait presence and fish-catching activity.
At the end of each day, for a brief period before twilight, shoals of these baitfish rose to the calm surface and dimpled the water in huge sheets, some hundreds of feet wide. During this brief moment just before twilight, some larger fish also broke the surface in solo in every direction. We didn't catch any of those surfacing fish, whatever they were. They could have been bass or small carp or most anything else. What it shows is that even as the frigid air temperature plummets at day's end, and in 34 - 35 degree water, bait and bigger fish still get active during low light at dusk.
For the fish we caught, however, it was having your bait right on bottom around some kind of vertical structure that seemed important for any chance to catch a fish.
If deep water and vertical structure weren't nearby, you could probably forget it.
Catchable fish were associated with a deep bank, underwater ledge, channel bend, protruding point or any other kind of sudden drop-off. Depths in these areas ranged from 10 feet and dropped quickly to 35 feet of water nearby. Some of the deepest holes in the creeks were over 50 feet deep.
MegaStrike ShakE2 jigs
Because of the need to fish anywhere from 10 to 35 feet or even 50 feet deep, often all on the same cast, there were only a couple of lures that could work in such deep and near-vertical situations.
Jigs of course. In our case, we used Bobby's ShakE2 jig heads. The water level here rises and falls several feet a day with the tides, but there was almost no current flow in the deeper areas of the creeks. So a 3/16th oz ShakE2 jig head was more than heavy enough. Any heavier - say a 1/4 or 5/16th oz - seemed to drag too roughly against the bottom and would need to be popped and worked a little too aggressively. The 3/16th seemed to slip across bottom more feebly and slowly with softer, less aggressive rod pulls. That soft, slow and lethargic jig movement seemed to be the ticket.
Gary Yamamato Grubs
We sweetened our jigs with 93-series Yamamoto hula grubs at first. They worked, yet it seemed that more catches and therefore higher confidence went with the Yamamoto 40-series single tail grubs for the duration of the trip. Keep in mind, the 40-series single tail as well as the 93-series hula grub both make small, compact offerings on the ShakE2 jigs. Such small, compact offerings are ideal fare for winter bass.
We worked the ShakE2 jigs with Yamamoto grubs painstakingly slow, often making long pauses before moving the grubs forward, dragging them slowly in a stop-and-go manner.
GYB 40-series grubs and 93-series hulas in colors 236 (smoke rootbeer w/green and copper) and 301 (green pumpkin w/green and purple) blended naturally into the stained water color and winter creek environment.
Mark King Shakey Head Rods
Not only did we put MegaStrike's ShakE2 jigs to the test this trip, but Bobby brought a pair of shakey jig rods for us to test, made by Mark King of Deep South Rod company located in Clewiston, Florida.
Bobby and I both had one of the same shakey jig rod model #D72MLC 7'2" Medium/Light Extra/Fast action blanks to try. It seemed perfect for shakey jig fishing. The rod was light in weight. It wasn't tip heavy but well-balanced and fit the hand well. Being able to give a good shake or work a jig on bottom could all be done without tiring the wrist alone, thereby leaving the elbow and shoulder cocked and ready for a proper hookset. The rod stayed comfortable and easy-to-fish with ShakE2 jigs for the two days that Bobby and I both tried them. The rod didn't take any getting used to, and no other issues arose when it came to shakey jig fishing with the rod. For more info, check out www.deepsouthfishingrods.com and look for the 'Mark King Shakey Head' rod model #D72MLC there.
Silver Buddy Blade Baits
Also, we did great with blade baits, namely the Silver Buddy. They are the ideal bait for deep, vertical presentations this time of year. These too make small, compact offerings, but in contrast to jigs and grubs, blade baits have a great deal of action, movement and vibration. One can say that blade baits are the opposite of jigs and grubs. Blade baits are very active, vibrate strongly, and seem most effective with a sudden lift-and-drop technique that triggers strikes.
Bobby Uhrig worked his Silver Buddy with a very sharp, long lift followed by a fairly fast, slack line fall. I fished beside him using a slower, pumping kind of lift from say 8 to 11 o'clock, following the Silver Buddy back down with a slower, tight line fall. We both caught fish. Most important was to keep it banging the bottom, to have it hit the bottom on every drop before you pumped it again. It did not seem to matter whether it was a 1/4 to 1/2 oz gold or silver model.
So you can see, the Silver Buddy and the grubs on jigs are two very different approaches - and both very effective for cold water bass.
Mega a Must
One thing we did with all our jigs, grubs and blade baits was to coat them in MegaStrike fish attractant. To me, MegaStrike fish attractant is more important in winter than any other season. Fish are lethargic and can need more convincing than at any other time of the year.
Silver Buddy blade baits in silver or gold are steady producers in cold water.
Bobby Uhrig with bass and crappie that both went for Silver Buddies.
Nice one on a #93-10-236 GYB hula grub and 3/16th oz ShakE2 head.
John Radamski lands two in the waning light at day's end.
3/16th oz ShakE2 jig and Yamamoto #40-20-301 single tail grub.
Bobby Uhrig looking quite frozen and quite happy.
How Jim Mayberry celebrates Thanksgiving.
ShakE2 jigs and 40-series Yamamoto single tail grubs became the confidence baits for us.
Lance and Jim landed six smallies on one pass past a fallen tree on this deep shoreline. They had fished this same tree a few times earlier in the trip, when it did not produce anything - except on this one pass.
A brief flurry of action resulted in this handsome half dozen on jigs and grubs for Jim and Lance. Upon release, they swam straight back into the same tree.