Photo by Ron Sinfelt

By Bud Reiter

Winter in Florida is hard to define. Depending upon the jet stream and how much arctic air wanders down from Canada, winter can be just a few ill-defined months on the calendar. Or it can be some of the same bitter cold - albeit without the snow - that our neighbors to the north normally receive. Or it can be anything in between, and often is.

That's enough to keep most Sunshine State bassers on their toes this month as they factor in the differing kinds of bass behavior that weather causes. But they also have to factor in different lakes and their environments. That can really change the game plan, and never is that truer than when you compare the winter bass fishing on Lake Okeechobee to that on Lake Tarpon.

Although the lakes are no more than 70 miles apart from north to south with respect to latitude, when it comes to comparing how their bass respond in December, you might as well be comparing Mars to Venus, so differently do they act. But that doesn't mean the fish can't be caught. Here's a look at how you can score on both lakes.

Winter on the Big O isn't so much an actual event as it is just a period on the calendar. This vast 780-square-mile lake has only two real seasons - the spawn and the summer. And that spawning season can start quicker, and run longer, than on any other lake in the state.

Big O bass can begin spawning as early as October. By December the spawn is normally in full swing. That means that bass on this lake are going to be either shallow or heading to the shallows. Savvy anglers do the same.

"If you have stable weather, warming weather, or even a slight chill after a brief cold front, you find most of your bass on this lake in 3 to 4 feet of water," says veteran tournament angler Steve Daniel, who guided on the Big O for many years.

Finding 3 to 4 feet of water on the Big O isn't hard - over half of it falls into that depth range. Finding the right 3 to 4 feet of water is tougher. But you can start with these tips.

The northwest corner of the lake normally sees the first spawning bass of the year, and as colder weather approaches it will see the strongest spawn. That's because it is the area that is most sheltered from cold-front winds.

Other areas can be productive as well, and all share a few common traits. They have a mixture of native vegetation that includes eelgrass, peppergrass, lotus pads and bulrushes in that critical 3- to 4-foot depth range. They also are close to deeper water.

"When bass migrate into the shallows from the main lake in September and October," Daniels notes, "they do it in stages. One of the last places they stage on is the 'hydrilla walls.' These are the outside edges of the major hydrilla beds in 6 to 10 feet of water, and they are the first significant areas of cover between the open lake waters and the spawning shallows. Find good spawning cover near a channel or sharp drop where a hydrilla wall meets the shallows and you have found an area that bass use early in the spawning season."

The best hydrilla walls are those located on a point that extends towards the deeper main-lake waters. Any suitable spawning cover inside those walls is well worth the time it takes to fish them.

It is also worth getting aggressive in your approach. Noisy topwater lures are a very overlooked December tool on the Big O. This is especially true early and late in the day, but savvy anglers don't ignore them at noon on a bright day. A buzzbait not only covers a lot of water in your search for concentrations of bass, but it also can trigger some of the bigger fish to bite. A single plain aluminum blade with a white and chartreuse skirt is normally effective, but if the bass just follow or strike short, shift to a black skirt.

If buzzbaits reveal fish but fail to connect, shift to a noisy floating topwater plug. Sometimes the slower pace of noise and commotion can turn boilers into biters, but you have to get their attention first. Surface plugs and buzzbaits may not catch the most bass, but on a calm, overcast December day they attract the biggest.

If weeds inhibit their use, shift to swimming a 10- to 12-inch plastic worm, dancing a weedless soft-plastic jerkbait, or ripping a big spinnerbait through the cover. There isn't a lot of finesse involved with Big O bass in December. Power bassin' rules!

That also applies when an infrequent cold front comes through. It takes one heck of a cold front to move December bass from the shallow spawning flats. What normally happens is that they move to adjacent areas of surface-matted cover and lay up.

If yesterday's 80-degree weather is 40 degrees this morning, just break out a flipping rod and fish the thickest cover you can find next to the areas where you found the bass the day before. If the front is an exceptionally severe one, the fish won't move out of the shallows the first couple of days, but after a few days they'll head back towards deeper water. The place to find them is on the hydrilla walls that they staged on during the early stages of the spawn. Big O bass in December are not complex fish. They want to get shallow and they get aggressive.