Finally A Consistent Bite – But No Keepers

17mm – 20mm of the Osage, banks toward the backs of big coves, between docks and windy secondary points.

Today was incredibly windy, as I tried to take the advice of BB experts and slow down and fish brush off the banks, the wind was just so strong everywhere that I just could not feel my bait. While I threw the A-Rig for a very short while with no bites, I through the jerk bait, which has not been producing very well for me the past 10 days due to the fish being well off the banks and deep. Well today, there was finally a consistent bite on the jerk bait. While I did not catch a single keeper today, it sure felt good to feel fish tugging on the jerk bait in the typical strike zone for this time of year, 6′-14′ of water. Most bites came in generally slack water but with some good ripple from the strong winds. The bite, which surprised me came off the first cove channel banks toward the backs of coves with a moderate deep channel of 18-25′ of water on smaller chunk rock, sort of pre-spawn type banks. No bites on jig today, however as stated above it was difficult to feel the bait, so I just went with the jerk bait bite and caught 15 shorts. No good for a tournament, but maybe the fish are finally starting to feel better in their new water temps and depths. The bite was most consistent when water temp was above 40 degrees in these areas fished. The very backs of the coves had warmer water than the mid cove of main lake points…I guess the shallows, while they freeze faster, also warm faster.