As winter starts to set in for most of North America with snow and rain, we are fortunate enough to be kayak fishing for largemouth bass on the Colorado River in the desert southwest. It doesn’t snow, or even rain very much here, but it does get cold. It’s in the low 40’s Fahrenheit at night fairly regularly and I’ve had ice on the windshield a couple times. Early morning fishing trips can be cold, but almost never wet.
With the cooler desert weather and winter sun lower in the sky, the cold water released from the bottom of upstream reservoirs behind large Colorado River dams does not warm as much as it does in the summer. That makes the water temperature here on lower Colorado drop into the 50’s. Once it gets that cold, the largemouth bass, being cold blooded animals, slow down and are not active. Toss in a few consecutive cloudy, cold days and you can expect the fishing to be slow.
Cold or not, when the wind is not blowing, we are out there fishing. After a couple weeks of non-stop desert wind, a glassy Colorado River is an especially beautiful sight.
The wind picks up nearly every day well before noon and the largemouth bass at this fishing spot do not bite at night, so the daily fishing strategy is pretty simple. Get out there at dawn and fish until the wind picks up.
Winter fishing brings lower expectations. Colder water means less fish and less big fish as they go into wintertime semi-hibernation. Catching any fish makes a winter day a success, catching a big one is even better and keeps you getting out there on those cold mornings.
We got a couple days of good kayak fishing between windy desert days, which is almost every day. The way things are going, every day of fishing is precious.
One thing that keeps changing in the winter is the Colorado River water levels. The river goes up and down as massive amounts of water are shuttled between dams of all sizes. It has just started to snow in the mountains, only rain refills the Colorado River reservoirs until spring. The photo below shows how much the water level drops in a twenty four hour period.
Cold, low water, whatever. As long as the wind isn’t blowing and the fish are biting, we’ll give it a shot so check back soon.