10mm of the Glaize, targeting points, channel swings and channel banks.

Today was one of those days that I think most of us have experienced, it seemed that nothing could go right and just never felt comfortable with approach to get a bite. I got on the water today about 2:00 and fished until 4:00. I had hoped to get on the water earlier, but had some things to do to get ready for my weekend trip to STL to watch my grandkids sports. I planned to commit to the A-Rig today, (yuck), while I really do not like to throw it, due to the many snafu’s that seem to come about with it, the day just felt right with the wind, generation, etc. I ran to the mid Glaize area which I have not fished much lately and close enough for me considering that I would not be on the water long. My plan was to throw the A-Rig on the windy points, over brush and on some steep channel banks in that area. After about 20 minutes, my braid froze and although I was paying close attention to my rod guides and reel, the braid on my spool was getting frozen and on a cast the rig just dead stopped mid way through my cast and caused a back lash, that I just could not undo, especially with the cold temps and cold hands, so the A-rig was done for the day. I then picked up the stick bait, the same megabass M Tng and Rob and I had bites on yesterday, but I could not get a bite. I found some calm water from the wind and flipped a COG jig, worked very slowly, however again the ice on the guides and in the reel made it difficult to feel the very soft bite going on right now with the jig. I was seeing a lot of bait fish on the bottom over 15′-20′ of water and I was seeing fish on a lot of brush piles, so I thought the stick bait was going to be the right bait worked slowly over the brush and well off the banks. I pulled up to a bank that I had sank brush this summer, good wind, good brush, lots of bait fish, I picked up the stick bait and without giving thought to clearing the ice, I made a strong throw, but due the ice on my rod and in my spool, the bait went no where, the rod slipped out of my gloves and I watched this $450 rod/reel combination sink right to the bottom – oh yea, with my $30 megabass bait, ouch. then I picked up my rod that had my Pro Blue II megabass, but immediately realized that I had a birds nest that I got yesterday but failed to fix. So, I was down to an RC Stick in the wrong color or a jig. I tried to get into some areas that were calm to throw the jig, as right now the jig is my confidence bait, but no takers, too much ice on my guides and reels. Overall it was quite a tough day on the lake. However, there are a lot of average angler errors that I made today, I will learn from those errors and I will be back on the water Monday with confidence and hope to catch some of those LOZ winter hawgs. On another note, Ameren announced today the beginning of the winter draw down of the lake. We should see heavy generation over the next few weeks and see lake levels drop, which hopefully will put the bass in their winter time patterns and stacked up.