December Fishing
Published on Bassmaster.com December 10, 2008
December is easily one of the least fished months of the year for bass fisherman. Most people have other things on their minds. There are the holidays, shopping, traveling, hunting and the end of the fall frenzy taking much of the blame. On Lake Fork, you will find more duck hunters and crappie fisherman than you will bass fishermen in December, despite the fact that Fork is one of the best trophy bass lakes in the country.
I'm guilty of getting sidetracked myself. I don't get a lot of guide trips booked this time of the year, so I spend more days at home than I do on the water. This is the time of the year when I hit the tackle shops, work on my boat, clean my reels and do some the computer work that I've been putting off. But it doesn't mean there isn't good fishing in December.
A couple of years ago we had a warming trend on Lake Fork, and I had a day when we caught 109 bass. This was a very unusual circumstance when the water temps got back up in the 60s, but it goes to show that you can catch good numbers even in December.
For us here in Texas, we have quite a few options. We can fish the colder water lakes (like Lake Fork) or we can fish the power plant lakes, which range from 60 degrees to over 100 degrees in the middle of winter. Because the power plants generate more electricity when it's colder, they're sometimes warmer in the winter than they are in other seasons. I plan to say more about power plant fishing in future articles, but for now I just want to mention how you can find out what baits and locations to use on your favorite lake.
If you go to the Basslog and click on the "custom search" option, you can query the database yourself and determine how you should fish. The more information you know, the more accurate your search will be. For instance, you know the month (December), so click on month and choose December. If that's all you want to search, choose "that's enough criteria" and click "go," and it will search the entire database for everything recorded for December. Then, it will return 1 of 4 different queries — game plan, top locations, top lures and specific top lures.
For this particular search, the game plan query returns the following:
| Time of day | Lure | Structure |
|---|---|---|
| 1st light to sunup | chrome/blue 1/4-oz lipless crankbait solid color | 6- to 10-ft creek channel with vegetation & trees |
| sunup to 9:00AM | blue fleck Texas rig curly tail worm 3/16-oz lead bullet weight | 0 to 5-ft shallow flats with trees |
| 9:01AM - 12:00PM | black/blue Texas rig curly tail worm 1/8-oz screw in weight | 0 to 5-ft shallow flats with matted vegetation |
| 12:01PM - 3:00PM | watermelon/red flake Texas rig small finesse worm 1/8-oz lead bullet weight | 11- to 15-ft bridge with cement |
| 3:01PM - 5:00PM | chrome/blue 1/2-oz lipless crankbait solid color | 6- to 10-ft creek channel with vegetation & trees |
| 5:01PM to dark | red lipless crankbait under 1/4-oz solid color | 6- to 10-ft shallow flats with submerged vegetation |
| midnight to 1st light | white/chartreuse shallow diving crankbait small rounded bill | 11- to 15-ft boat docks with no obvious cover |
The other 3 queries return the following:
Top Locations
| Top structure & depth | Top cover |
|---|---|
| 1) creek channel (6 to 10 ft) |
|
| 2) shallow flats (0 to 5 ft) |
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| 3) shallow flats (6 to 10 ft) |
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| 4) flats near dropoff (0 to 5 ft) |
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| 5) creek channel (0 to 5 ft) |
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| 6) secondary point (6 to 10 ft) |
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| 7) creek channel (11 to 15 ft) |
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| 8) flats near dropoff (6 to 10 ft) |
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| 9) main lake point (0 to 5 ft) |
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| 10) main lake point (6 to 10 ft) |
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Top Lures
- lipless crankbait
- Texas rig worm
- crankbait
- C-rig worm
- skirted jig
- drop shot
- jig/worm
- soft jerkbait
- weightless sinking worm
- spinnerbait
Specific Lures
| Top Lures | Best Color(s) |
|---|---|
| 1) 1/2-oz lipless crankbait |
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| 2) rubber skirted jig |
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| 3) 1/4 oz lipless crankbait |
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| 4) medium diving crankbait |
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| 5) unskirted jig with worm body |
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| 6) Texas rig curly tail worm |
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| 7) soft jerkbait |
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| 8) deep diving crankbait |
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| 9) Texas rig small finesse worm |
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| 10) drop shot finesse worm |
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I encourage you to search the Insider Basslog for yourself and learn as much as you can. We especially encourage you to record every bass you catch, whether you catch it in a lake, pond, creek, river, etc. It will especially benefit you in the future if you record your fish as soon as you get home from your outing. You will be surprised just how many details we forget over time. The more fish get logged, the more accurate it will become and the more fish you will catch.
Be sure to look for my next articles as I plan to write about deep water fishing.