Late Fall and Winter Bass

When late fall in the Great Lakes and Midwest region rolls around a few weeks to a month after turnover, the bass largely shut down, especially largemouths.  This usually happens after the water temperature gets below around 48 degrees. The largemouth bass is primarily a warm-water fish and doesn't get much further north than Minnesota.  They flourish in warmer waters (part of the reason why bass get so much bigger in the South and Mexico - the difference is huge) and the areas where people can ice fish for them are confined to a few states.  Which is just as well, because the ice fishing for largemouth bass is pretty poor.

Despite their slower metabolism, bass still need to eat.  Before the lakes freeze, you want to go smaller in lure size and slow your presentation way down.  Slower presentations like jigs and jigging spoons are your best bet.  You can also try slowly working small jerkbaits with lots of pauses in the retrieve.

Location.  Points, docks, and mouths of creeks are your keys now.  Look for where the bank tapers to provide access to deeper water.  If there are green weeds still alive, good, but remember that brown and dying weeds actually consume oxygen so those are bad.

Water is clearer this time of year (algae and weeds are mostly gone) so I usually go with a naturally colored presentation in lakes - olive or other darker colors.  Shad colored imitations are great this time of year, especially in earlier fall.

Once the ice freezes, bass become even more dormant.  Largemouth fishing can be decently challenging this time of year.  They eat less but more importantly, they eat smaller things too.   Instead of summer fishing when you were using five to seven inch lures, now we want to use one to two inch lures.  And two inches is even a little big.

Basically, largemouth ice fishing is very similiar to panfish fishing.  You'll want to focus on fertile flats and weededges with small lures and light gear.  Crappie minnows work.