Thread: Winter cement

Thought we'd share the info: As the surface temp. starts to drop The following might help you. We practice this on Keowee, and Russell. We fish concrete structure late in the afternoon when it's sunny. The cement absorbes the heat and warms the water. We've marked as much as 3 degrees difference in some places on the surface, and 4-5 @ 10-15 ft. especially on a calm day with min. boat traffic and slow to no current. Bream, Spots, Channel cats have been our best catches. We've never concentrated on slabs at Keowee yet but will. On Russell it's been crappie, yellow pearch, and chain pic's. The depth to fish varies but our sucsess has been 6 to 8 in. off the bottom mainly, in 15-30 ft. water. I don't know all the science to it, but it works. We've not seen bait in this effort to matter, so I'm assuming it's more of a temp. thing ?? The fish will be nose into the cement literally, so bring a side bouy or two. Minnows only.

you mean bridges? even if they get no sun during the day?

Could be, maybe the tire heat from a busy bridge transmits down? Yes to bridges, although there tends to be more current there. Try dams, locks, pump stations {idle}. Keowee dam hardly ever runs, give er' a try. Then you get a double wammy @ the skimmer wall, cause warmer water goes through to boot! And of course the hot hole, but I've never caught a crappie there. Just gobs of spots and channels. There are also big flatheads @ the hot hole year round.

Originally Posted by team james

Could be, maybe the tire heat from a busy bridge transmits down? Yes to bridges, although there tends to be more current there. Try dams, locks, pump stations {idle}. Keowee dam hardly ever runs, give er' a try. Then you get a double wammy @ the skimmer wall, cause warmer water goes through to boot! And of course the hot hole, but I've never caught a crappie there. Just gobs of spots and channels. There are also big flatheads @ the hot hole year round.

Could be the reason for no crappie. I like to fish concrete structure in the afternoon on a cold day. Anywhere the water is a few degrees warmer than the other water you are fishing. Where a running creek comes into the lake is also a good place to fish for winter crappie. Fishing is always better than staying at home

Team James, thanks for the tip. I've never thought about targeting cement on Keowee during the winter.

Any time!