After the front passes through and for a few days after, conditions will remain poor for up to a few days – and the longevity of it can vary.

The high pressure that follows behind cold fronts contributes to lethargic fish that won’t move as far or anywhere up the water column towards near the surface. The impact from cold fronts is most drastic and negative to smallmouth bass. This pressure change affects smallmouth swim bladders the most, and keeps them pinned down towards the bottom where they will be reluctant to chase moving baits.

Anywhere I fish, I expect bass to move off from the areas they were at prior, reposition themselves, and hold tighter to the habitat or structure they are using.

Post-Front Smallmouths

If smallmouths were caught from a specific area or piece of structure prior to the front, the expectation now is they didn’t retreat too far away. They’ve sought out the protection from nearby cover, or sanctuary from deep structure, waiting for the front to pass through.

Weed fisheries are easiest to target, as smallmouths seek refuge along the edges and atop coontail beds. Probing through the edges with jig worms and ned rigs such as Z-Man TRD’s on 1/8 oz. heads reliably produces. They descend slowly downward, offering smallmouths extra time to decide whether to pursue them or not.

Additionally, power anglers fishing weed smallmouths have options as well. My boat commonly enjoys ripping 4-inch Z-Man Diezel MinnowZ paddletails rigged on ¼-ounce Finesse EyeZ heads, Chatterbait WillowVibes with Scented PaddlerZ, lipless crankbaits, and perch pattern swim jigs through weed pockets, openings, and edges. Each lure type here triggers reaction strikes, and commonly produces a wild ruckus of other species that can include muskies, big walleyes, pike, and largemouths who are also buried in the same weed cover for protection.

Out deeper, targeting cribs and deep rock piles and boulders is strongly recommended. Finesse and drop shot anglers will excel in these locations. Drop shot rigs with finesse worms are deadly. Many guide trips have been saved by customers subtly wiggling their worms alongside and through the structures. Preferred finesse worms are Kalin’s Weenie Worms, Zoom Finesse Worms, and Luck E Strike Finesse worms.

In cold fronts, I live and die by a custom-poured 4” solid black stick worm rigged on a weedless ned head, fished as a bottom rig. Heavier 5/32 oz. sizes are used to maintain bottom contact. It is almost snag-proof. Dead stick, but keep pressure on the line to avoid deep hookings. The creation of this homemade rig in 2018 (named the AR Rig) has produced several 4-and-5-pound caliber smallmouths.

Catching bottom-huggers requires patience, persistence, and some wizardry with your rod and line to detect light strikes. Bites will not come easily, and are rarely detected without some magic touch. Nearly all bites will come dead-sticking, when the bait is motionless. Some of our trusted methods are drop shot rigs, heavy Ned rigs, finesse football jigs, and tubes with ¼ oz. jig inserts and an exposed hook. Maintaining bottom contact is of utmost importance. Otherwise, you’ll fail to catch these least active smallmouths. You will become a frustrated angler pursuing these fish. Don’t quit on them prematurely either.

Post-Front Largemouths

For largemouths, a cold front always makes things tougher. Instead of covering water and fishing quickly, slow down and be more persistent, and slow the retrieves. Identify the most obvious high percentage locations on your lakes, which on mine tend to be offshore weed humps, weed bars, secondary points, coontail beds, and wood. Don’t neglect nearshore habitats either. Many Northwoods lakes feature bog edges, flooded brush, laydowns, docks, and emergent plants.

Focus only on your area and concentrate on delivering your very best presentations into the short strike zones. If largemouths are there, you can get them to bite. It will require repetitive casts and multiple attempts with several baits into those areas to coax them.

With a few exceptions, post-frontal lure adjustment should be smaller and slower, and more compact.

Rather than throw a 1/2 -ounce swim jig with 5-inch trailer, I will instead choose a ¼-ounce version of the same jig and 3-inch version of the trailer. Rather than working it with a heavier casting set-up, I might fling it out there with MHF spinning gear instead. The same concept also applies with casting, swimming, and flipping jigs too. And instead of using full bodied trailers, I give consideration to chunks and downsized creatures too such as Missile Baits Baby D-Bombs, and Paca Craw Chunks and Paca Craw Jr’s infused with BaitFuel.

In general, smaller lure profiles are easiest for largemouths to catch up to. 4-inch stickbaits, shaky worms, and tubes worked on spinning gear are favored if a more finesse approach is needed.

Downsizing is a popular way of getting more bites in post-cold front conditions. When doing this, you tend to increase the number of bites you get, only if you are putting the bait within the fish’s strike zone. Downsizing like this is not a guarantee to bites, however.

With any lure choice, slowing the presentation increases your odds since it gives sluggish largemouths a greater bite opportunity. From creeping a casting jig to slow-rolling a Chatterbait Elite EVO just fast enough to keep the blade vibrating, baits should be easy for largemouths to catch up to under bluebird skies.

Alternatively, don’t ever omit reaction strikes. Deep diving crankbaits that can rip through the weed tops and grind bottom take both largemouths and smallmouths equally well. In fact, a recent smallmouth trip on a dark water lake produced a handful of quality 18 to 20-inch fish for my customer whose subtle reaction strikes were triggered by the lip of a Rapala DT-8 grinding into rock piles. His crankbaiting outfished every downsized and bottom bait we attempted that day.

Additionally, if needing to extract big largemouths from weedlines and upsetting them with additional reaction baits, look no further than rip baits such as a loud lipless crankbait, a Chatterbait Elite EVO or Jackhammer, or upsizing to a Z-Man Big Blade Chatterbait.

The two most important rods in my boat for the deployment of these “piss ’em off!” strategies are my St. Croix Mojo Bass Glass (MGC72MHM) and St. Croix Legend Tournament Rip-N-Chatter (LBTC72HM).