Quote Originally Posted by know1 View Post
I'm glad to see other people say this. I'm not the expert you all are, but I've fished it quite a bit the last two winters, and both years I did much worse after mid-January. My best trips the last two years have been in December and right around the first of the year.

I don't really know how to use a jig, so I just throw the FNF all day. I will say that even though the bite seems better the first two hours of daylight (although I can hardly get my relatives out of bed to get there that early), I have caught my biggest fish later in the day.

That's just been my experience.
Again, just my opinion but the bite does slow way down in Mid January just because the water temps are dropping even lower and reach the mid to lower 40's by then. When the temps are this low, the Yellow Hoss Fly (Asprin Head Jig) bite turns on for me. The absolute ugliest bait ever invented is the Yellow Hoss Fly but I have caught many fish on it and even so much that I will be giving some of these in the door prize bags at the get together. Great bait for COLD water, don't ask me what it is supposed to imitate but if not for Steve Headrick I never would have believed this bait could catch anything. We were in his boat one day and pulled just off my favorite spot on the lake and there is a grass bed at the end of the area that I fish. We had caught a couple of fish on the fly and I had one of these Yellow Hoss Fly's tied on. He told me to cast it towards the grass bed. FIRST CAST, IF I AM LIEING I AM DIEING, and I set the hook on a 5-14 Smallie. My little 6 1/2 foot spinning rod with 6lb Flourocarbon had a wonderful time in fighting this fish. NO JOKE, FIRST CAST. I took 3sons out the next day and caught 3 on it. Fish it just like a jig on the bottom and these fish will hammer it. The same day with Headrick and we are fishing a ledge with stumps in about 20 feet of water. He is throwing the Yellow Hoss Fly, gets hung up on one of the stumps, has the boat over top of it working his rod and it pops free, his rod breaks loose, then re-loads just as quick for a 3 1/2 pounder hammered it just as it busted free from the stump. My only guess is the fish was looking at the hung jig the whole time, it un-hangs and BOOM. Like I said one UGLY bait but it catches fish and I have several in my box all are 1/4 oz Yellow in Color. Punisher Lures makes Brown, Green, White and other colors of the same jig but I only use the Yellow color.