Deep water bass fishing - help required

[NormC]

I regularly fish for bass in th summer and particularly enjoy flicking lures around the structure and weed beds.
Well today I took the brother-in-in law (soon to deploy to Afghanistan with the Army and desperate for some fishing before he goes) to Hinze for my first go at 'cold water' bass fishing.

Tried around the points, but no go. Went for a run and found fish holding at 19m to 22m in water between 21m and 30m deep. In some areas there must have been thousands of the buggers schooled up.

Well we tried everything. Jigging plastics and Jakall knock offs, trolling the same and hard bodies, etc. Managed to land two at around 35cm on trolled Jackall knock offs. But nothing else. Brother-in-law didn't get a touch.

Nice relaxing day once the sun was up and the wind dropped, but fishing was disappointing.

Now I know I could get into them with live shrimp, but that's not the point.

So for all you Winter bass lure fishing experts, how about giving us some tips. I'd like to get Dave back out there for another go before he heads off to 'no fishing land' for 6 months.

Norm C

[Bassjunky]

Try some ice jigs mate, I find the smaller ones seem to work better. Hang them in front of their face and piss em off. If not try dropshotting with 3 inch minnows.Pineapple weights at the bottom off the line work well and leave about two feet of leader up two the hook.

[Fitzy]

One technique I use here
http://www.sweetwaterfishing.com.au/HeavyMetalBass.htm

Cheers,

Fitzy..

[NormC]

Thanks guys.
Fitzy, we were using a technique similar to what you describe, but not with as much finesse I suspect. Also, With the depth of water, we possibly needed a bit more weight to ensure we got down.

When trolling, we would have been well above the fish, but this is how we got our only two fish. Just lucky I guess.

If I go out again I'll take a few more options and follow your ideas a bit more faithfully.

Bassjunky, I don't have any ice jigs, but I'll have a look next time at the tackle shop.
Thanks

[Roo]

you could also try a good old soft plastic. use a heavy head and let it sink to the bottom, then just slowly wind it back up through the school. Once you think it is out of their range just open let it sink all the way back down again but keep the line running through you fingers so you can feel any hits on the drop. you can do this drifting if it is windy or vertically if it is calm. allows you to cover a lot of ground too.

Note: this is a technique described to me, i've tried it once but had no success yet seems to be popular so maybe it wasn't my lucky day!!

cheers roo.

[Little grey men]

You could always try to drop a spinnerbait, let it helicopter down to them and start lifting it in front of their snouts. That should throw off enough flash to get them cranky.

[rc@hinze]

Norm, heres one method that has worked for me. As you are trolling and you notice fish on the sounder that are down deep, just let some more line free spool off so you lure sinks staight down(assuming it is a sinking type lure). Hopefully by the time the lure gets to where the sounder gave the signal, the lure will be travelling amongst the fish.

[gladbream]

try a slider grub on a 1/4 ounce rev head jig. and slowly bounce it off the bottom. colours include motor oil, smoke yellow core (catalpa), or pro blue. ifound that these ones are the go. i fish soft plastics most of the time and have had more success on these..

cheers

[hard]

it's up to you a lot of people wont use them but a down rigger helps gets a small lure in front of their noses i do like ice jigs tho

cheers hard

[Fitzy]

it's up to you a lot of people wont use them but a down rigger helps gets a small lure in front of their noses i do like ice jigs tho

cheers hard

Good call hard. I did some playing in Big W last winter with great results on big bass.
If you want to catch good fish & aren't worried about any stigmas, a downrigger can be a cracker way to catch fish.

Cheers,

Fitz..

http://www.sweetwaterfishing.com.au/gallery/036.jpg