Across the continent, savvy anglers recognize the potential of plying the tepid waters that flow from power plants. In Minnesota, for example, anglers venture to the “Hot Pond” at Lake Pokegama near Grand Rapids to catch open-water bass when most folks are drilling holes in the ice. Likewise, warm effluent from a power plant on the Mississippi River near Monticello, Minnesota, draws smallmouth bass and walleye. And the heated waters of North Dakota’s Nelson Lake yield scores of crappie and the state’s biggest largemouth bass during the dead of winter. In Texas, more than 50 electric-plant cooling reservoirs offer excellent fishing in artificially warmed waters, including Lake Monticello, where a former state record bass was caught. From New York to New Mexico, similar opportunities exist.

The Scene

In the nation’s heartland, some Kansas anglers spend winter days pursuing their favorite quarries at La Cygne and Coffey County lakes. La Cygne is a 2,600-acre cooling reservoir for the Kansas City Power and Light Company’s coal-burning plant, about 40 miles south of Kansas City. Coffey County’s 5,090 acres lie about two miles north of Burlington, Kansas, and it cools the generators at the Wolf Creek Nuclear Power Plant. Coffey’s average depth is 21 feet and its deepest spot plunges into 90 feet of water.

Both are flatland reservoirs with miles of riprap jetties and shorelines. There also are submerged humps, roadbeds, bridges, rockpiles, manmade reefs, farm pond dams, stumps, brushpiles, and an assortment of aquatic vegetation. Anglers new to Coffey and La Cygne and many other discharge lakes should be warned that much of the shoreline is an eyesore, and the noise pollution is distracting. Huge towers with plumes of smoke and steam set a surreal scene, particularly when fog rolls off the water.

The Coldwater Connection at Hotwater Lakes

Most anglers hold the mistaken notion that the best areas are within the plume of the warm water that the power plants create. Several winters ago, a group of anglers began probing coldwater lairs at La Cygne and Coffey, and these areas yielded excellent numbers of largemouth and smallmouth bass, white bass, and wipers, along with occasional crappies, catfish, and more. Coldwater areas often outproduced warm ones, especially when the lakes hosted many anglers who believed that the most catchable bass lived in warm water.

Moreover, the smallmouth bass anglers typically catch in Coffey County’s cool waters are bigger and healthier-looking than those in warm sections. According to Leonard Jirak, a fishery biologist with the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks who helps manage Coffey, the reason for this phenomenon is that Coffey County’s shad population is small. He notes that the Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation tries to minimize shad numbers to keep them from clogging the power plant’s cooling-water intake screen. Jirak concludes: “Since there’s no surplus of forage-sized shad, predators in the warm waters have an increased metabolism but not enough food to match it. For maintaining their condition, they’re better off in colder waters.”

Because Coffey’s winter shad population is so minuscule, bass forage primarily on invertebrates such as crayfish and immature aquatic insects. When bass turn piscivorous, they feed on sunfish. During winter when the surface temperature hovers around 40°F, nearly one out of five coldwater smallies that anglers catch have crayfish antennae protruding from the gullet. But coldwater anglers seldom find a sunfish or shad tail jutting from a fish.

At Coffey, there’s more cold water than warm water to fish during winter. The reservoir’s deepest water lies in the coldwater zone and the best smallmouth lairs are in the lower portions of the lake. A number of offshore humps, points, and dropoffs attract smallmouths, though it’s a rare winter day that the wind allows anglers to deftly probe such haunts.

Moreover, because Coffey’s smallmouth bass spend most days subsisting on small invertebrates, anglers have found it imperative to use small, lightweight lures and to retrieve them slowly and precisely. But since 1996 when Coffey was first opened to angling, nearly incessant winter winds typically prevent anglers from perfecting finesse tactics at offshore spots.

The wind often is an angler’s greatest nemesis at Coffey. When a 25 mph wind blows from the south, anglers are prohibited from being on the lake, and wind and waves almost rival the rollers and whitecaps of the Great Lakes. Because the wind makes fishing so difficult, most anglers wisely avoid it. Nonetheless, Coffey County Lake is an excellent case study to ponder and learn approaches that undoubtedly work at more tranquil and productive venues.

Coffey features miles of riprap, and significant sections quickly drop into 20 to 30 feet of water, providing deep coverts for the smallmouth bass. These deep and steep sections of riprap in fact resemble rockslides along the bluffy shorelines of Ozark reservoirs. Other sections of riprap have shallow ledges that plummet into deep water.

Riprap Tactics

When Coffey’s smallies are feeding tentatively, we’ve found that a 1/16-ounce marabou jig in a grayish-silver hue often elicits more strikes than any other lure. Black and olive jigs often produce additional fish on the second and third passes along fish-holding structure. These jigs closely replicate the small invertebrates that smallmouths seem to rely on.

Initially, many anglers are reluctant to try a 1/16-ounce jig, feeling it’s too tedious to cast and retrieve such a light lure in 15 to 18 feet of water. But heavier jigs continually snag in crevices between boulders that form the riprap. After such frustration, anglers come to appreciate the virtues of a light jig. In fact, when wintertime smallies periodically occupy areas less than 10 feet deep, a 1/32-ounce marabou jig is often a better option than the 1/16-ouncer.

Debate exists about the best length and action of spinning rods for casting and retrieving these minijigs. Gord Pyzer, In-Fisherman Field Editor from Kenora, Ontario, prefers a 7-foot medium-light-action Shimano drop-shot rod, noting that the waters he fishes “are usually very clear and bass typically spooky, so extra-long casts often are essential.” On the other hand, I’m a disciple of the legendary Charlie Brewer of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, and Billy Westmorland of Celina, Tennessee, who favored short rods. A 6-foot medium-action Shakespeare Synergy spinning rod, fitted with an old Garcia Cardinal 4 and spooled with 6-pound-test Berkley FireLine tipped with a 5-foot leader of 6-pound-test fluorocarbon, is my favorite combo.

Casting Approaches: When casting and retrieving light jigs along steep sections of riprap, the boat often floats over 25 feet. A cast should drop the jig into about 8 feet of water. A second before it reaches bottom, the retrieve begins with a slow swimming action so the jig eases down the sloping riprap, what Charlie Brewer called a “do-nothing” retrieve.

At times, anglers have found that delicately twitching the rod tip as the jig slowly glides entices more strikes than a pure “do-nothing” motif. Some anglers like to make the jig occasionally ricochet off a boulder as it glides down the riprap. Moreover, it’s common for a bass to pick up a jig that’s snagged in rocks as the angler shakes and banjos the line to free it.

At other times, bass hold along the bottom edge of the riprap, where it meets the floor of the reservoir. Some of these edges are in about 30 feet of water. When bass are bottom-oriented, a 3/16- to 3/8-ounce green-pumpkin jig and chunk has proven effective. Cast so the jig plummets directly into 25 feet of water. Employ a slow bottom-bouncing and dragging retrieve, allowing the jig to eventually hop from the riprap to the floor of the reservoir. At times, bass occupy a fairly large swath of the reservoir’s floor immediately adjacent to the riprap edge. In that situation, it may be essential to hop and drag the jig several yards beyond the edge of the riprap. This retrieve imitates crayfish, key prey for Coffey’s bass.

Vertical Approaches: The most fruitful tactic for bass holding along the deep edge of riprap has been a vertical presentation of a jig, rather than casting and retrieving. Vertical-fishing a 1/8-ounce grayish-silver, black, or olive marabou jig has been the most productive lure. When the wind becomes testy, switch to a 1/4-ounce jig.

When anglers fish vertically along a steep drop, they typically opt for 1/4-ounce and heavier jigs. But anglers at Coffey consistently catch more smallmouths by vertically fishing a lighter jig, suggesting that bass are feeding on small invertebrates.

The vertical presentation is accomplished by moving the boat into the wind with the trolling motor at a snail’s pace. As the boat moves, monitor sonar to keep the boat moving along the base of the riprap, which allows the jig to follow that edge. At times, the unit marks bass; at other times, they hold so flush to the bottom that sonar cannot distinguish them.

Some days, bass prefer a vertically presented jig gliding slowly along the bottom. At other times, they prefer it shaking and twitching; occasionally they want it to drop off the edge of the rocks onto the reservoir basin.

Even in water around 45°F, smallmouth periodically hold along riprap as shallow as 6 feet. When they’re in 6 to 12 feet of cold water, casting and slowly retrieving either a 1/32-ounce or a 1/16-ounce marabou jig has worked well. A 1/32-ounce or 1/16-ounce Gopher Mushroom Jig Head with a 3-inch YUM Dinger or half of a Strike King Zero also is an effective combo.

The most potent colors for this jig-and-soft-plastic combo have been a red jighead with a green pumpkin Zero, a watermelon-red flake Zero, a green pumpkin-chartreuse Dinger, and a Carolina pumpkin-chartreuse Dinger. Throughout the day, continually experiment with the weight of the jig and color of the Zero and Dinger to determine the most effective combination at that moment. We usually carry four or five spinning outfits, rigged with various options.

Jerkbait Time: In early March, Coffey’s bass continue to forage on invertebrates but begin shifting to a fish diet. Jerkbaits including Smithwick’s Suspending Rattlin’ Rogue and Rapala’s Husky Jerk start to take fish. Baits colored like sunfish typically work best.

During early spring, some bass start to wander across shallow rock and gravel flats adjacent to riprap banks, and jerkbaits cover water effectively and draw strikes from lethargic bass. They also draw strikes from bass along riprap, when cast to the bank and retrieved to the boat.

Experiment with jerkbait retrieves. Smallmouths sometimes prefer delicate twitches punctuated by long pauses; other times, they’re triggered by a series of double and even triple jerks followed by short pauses. But always, a subtle approach is the standard during winter and the first weeks of spring.

On the best winter outings at Coffey (sadly rare because of incessant wind), a pair of knowledgeable anglers can tangle with up to 30 smallmouth bass during a 4-hour outing, ranging from 11⁄2 to 31⁄2 pounds.

While the focus on Coffey County Lake is on smallmouths, largemouth bass at La Cygne follow a similar pattern throughout winter. The little Gopher Mushroom Head works well there when matched with a half-Zero, YUM Wooly Beavertail, a 3-inch tube, or a small jigworm.

For unknown reasons, marabou jigs seem not to work so well for largemouth bass. In fact, it always pays to test a jerkbait, as bigger bass sometimes move closer to the surface and eat bigger baits. But hardbaits often prove fruitless during the winter months.

If finesse anglers regularly make fair to good catches in the devilish winter conditions that prevail at Coffey, these tactics should work for largemouth, smallmouth, and spotted bass in cooler waters at other hot-water reservoirs across the country, as well as at more temperate impoundments.

*Ned Kehde, Lawrence, Kansas, is an In-Fisherman field editor and a frequent contributor on many fishing topics. For this article, he credits the research help of Terry Bivins of Lebo, Kansas, and **** Bessey of Lawrence, Kansas.