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What's up everybody it's Simon from LakeHub and I have some awesome winter fishing tips for you
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In the south the best time you can have on the lake in the winter time is with white bass
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hybrids and stripers and we are covering two out of the three today. I just got off the water
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on Cedar Creek Lake southeast of Dallas, Texas with a guide named Brent Herbeck. It's Herbeck's
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Lone Star Guide Service and he fishes all winter long for white bass and hybrids on Cedar Creek
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Lake. Let me tell you what, it was everything you wanted. It was cold, it was windy, but it was sunny
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and we caught a million fish. It was so much fun. The wind was crazy. It was about 15 to 20 miles
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an hour the entire time we were on the water. That made the audio a little bit tough. I'm going to
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lead in with some of the questions that I asked Brent while we were on the boat and we'll give
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you the answers that he gave us. The first question was what tackle and setup do you need for chasing
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white bass and big hybrids on the lake in the winter time? Well first of all we are using
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what we call dead stick jigs. These are one and a half ounce tail with a three and a half inch
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fluke. We're using these heavy jig heads which keep our lines nice and vertical. I call it triple
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rig because you got one above it and then another one just with a single hook right above it. So we
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got three hooks one two three. When it's windy you got to use a heavier bait. When it's calmer you
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got to use a lighter bait. Probably three eighths ounce paired with the only you know maybe only a
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little smaller half ounce jig on top. You can hear the thumper going on in the background of the video
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and so I asked Brent to tell us what does he do for sound attractants? We're using the thumper. We
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also got a splasher on our boat that we've been using. I've always got a manual thumper to add
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to the noise. Don't believe anybody what anybody tells you but thumping always works on if you're
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not thumping you're not catching okay. Next how does the water temperature affect the schooling
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behavior and the depths of white bass and hybrids both? The other thing that's big about dead stick
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is the water temperatures have to be below 60 degrees. I prefer them to be in between 50 and 54
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Right now we're sitting at 54 and you know with these chillier nights that have been happening
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these last few days you know we're in the 30s you know froze last night that's the kind of stuff you
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got to have in multiple days in December and January for it to really kick in and I would say
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that dead sticking right now is fully kicked in. Once you get into it it you know the colder nights
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keep it where it needs to be and it's only going to get better it's only going to get better here
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Next I asked Brent what's the best weather for winter fishing on the lake? The other thing about
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dead sticking in the winter time you know today's a nice kind of a blue sky partly cloudy
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barely cloudy but it's when the when the when we have a good overcast and some wind like today
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we only caught about eight hybrids today but we caught probably 75 to 100 white bass. It's just
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the hybrids like that that cover. All right you mentioned that hybrid fishing is better in the
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winter time because they're bigger. Can you explain that? Yes I mentioned before that the
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water temperatures get lower and once the water temperatures get in the 50s the fish metabolism
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slow down and if you can just imagine you know if you were to slow down and not move around and
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just eat and eat and eat you get plumpy you get big and a lot of these fish we're catching they
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look like footballs when you pull them out because all they're doing is laying down there and just
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eating big balls of fish. In the summertime all these fish do in this warm weather just run run
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run run and they they take all that fat off and they skinny up in the winter time but this is the
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time in the winter time to catch the big trophy white bass and the big trophy hybrids. I mean six
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years ago we caught one that was 12.1 pounds it was one pound shy of the lake record. Last year we
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caught a couple 10 pounders that were 25 and a half inches long but as you saw today you know
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even with the white bass the white bass we call them magnum bass out here in the winter time
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because they look magnum they're big I mean they're 14 to 15 and a half inches and like I said
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this is the time to catch the trophies and get one on the wall and catch a trophy of a lifetime
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Brent are there any tips for people who want to hire a guide? Yeah I mean I would just make sure
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you ask the right questions make sure that the guides you're hiring are hybrid fishing guides
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and they can they can actually go out and they have all the equipment that you need like a thumper
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a splasher good quality equipment and most importantly you know they have the drift socks
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because if you go out here and you're just spot locking and dead sticking you're probably not
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going to catch as many fish as we caught today honestly you just not you got to make sure you
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ask those right questions and make sure that the guide's experienced and you know and make sure
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that he's on them because you come out here in the cold weather and he's not on you're going to freeze your butt off. Finally I wanted to know what's the biggest difference between fishing for
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white bass on the lake in the summertime versus the wintertime here's what Brent had to say
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Well in the wintertime we're we're just finishing fishing vertical in between 38 and 55 feet
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in the summertime we're fishing on flats and edges and points with spinners and umbrella rigs and
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slabs and we're not using any of that right now we're used to using this strictly this straight
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up and down you know this bait needs to be nice and straight straight presentation with that with
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that bait with that fish because that's how they're eating it and you know a lot of times we'll just
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slowly raise it up and they'll come up for it like you guys saw on that active target today
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which I'm sure you're going to show a little video of that but that's pretty exciting fishing
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Yeah so you could see it you could see it on the display you could see the fish chasing
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if they were kind of pecking at it or they were kind of looking at it not really taking it you
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start to raise a little bit and they just chased after it and hammer it really fun. Special thanks
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to Brandon Jones photography it was so fun to fish and film with Brandon and mega thanks to
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Brent Herbeck check him out we'll put a link down below you can book him yourself and just catch a
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load of fish in the wintertime on Cedar Creek Lake or several other lakes around the Dallas
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Fort Worth area in North Texas. I'm Simon from LakeUp and CedarCreekLake.com get out on the
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water y'all catch some fish