Deep Holes Near Grass For December Seminole Bass

Guide Chris Taylor with a big Seminole bass. Chris says December is a great month for both numbers and big bass.

Lake Seminole is far enough south that the fall feeding spree you enjoyed up north in October and early November is still in full swing this month. You can catch shallow Seminole bass feeding up during December in a variety of ways, but rather than getting ready for winter, they are already getting ready for the prespawn. 

Seminole is in the southwest corner of our state where the Flint and Chattahoochee rivers join. This lake is full of shallow grassbeds and big Florida strain largemouth. Its structure and cover make it a bass factory, and you have many choices of places to fish, from often-stained water in the Flint and Chattahoochee rivers to the almost always crystal-clear Spring Creek. 

All the beautiful cover looks like bass should be everywhere, and you can spend a lot of time searching the 37,500 acres for the key spots. When you find them, you can enjoy success fishing a variety of lures and you can catch a lot of quality bass. 

Chris Taylor moved to Seminole to guide full-time a couple of years ago. His dad and family have lived on the lake most of his life, so Chris fished it for many years growing up and going back home as an adult. As a teenager, he met Randy Weaver, a local bass expert, and Randy mentored Chris, teaching him many secrets of the lake. 

When Chris was 17, he and Randy had five bass weighing 36.2 pounds, including a 10-2 Chris caught and a 9-11 Randy landed. Since that day, Chris has been totally hooked on bass fishing and has fished BFLs, MLFs and other big tournaments, as well as local tourneys. Chris now concentrates on building his guide business, repairing reels and making rods, and sharing Seminole info. He is trying to continue Jack Wingate’s tradition with a podcast called Lake Seminole Ramblings sponsored by Waffle House. 

“In December, Seminole bass are feeding up, holding in deeper holes near spawning areas and pushing up to grass edges to feed on shad and bluegill,” Chris said. 

You can spend hours riding river and creek ledges and holes in the flats trying to learn them, even with a good map. Once you find these 15- to 20-foot-deep honeyholes, you can catch a lot of fish. 

A key for Chris is bird activity. Any birds around or on the grass often indicate bass activity, so check it out. Chris says when he hits the right hole at the right time in December, he and his clients often land more than 30 bass from one spot, and doubling up is not uncommon. 

For December, Chris will have a topwater bait, soft swimbait, jerkbait, spinnerbait, crankbait, flutter spoon and a Texas-rigged worm ready for him and his clients to cast. Bass on Seminole can be finicky, and you often have to “match the hatch” with what they are eating to catch them. 

We checked out the following spots in early November, but the water was still too warm for fish to be actively feeding. We could see them on Chris’s electronics, but the bite was tough. Cooler water right now means they will bite much better. 

No. 1: N 30º 48.296 – W 84º 48.662 — Big Jim’s is a great place to stay and eat, and if you put in at Spring Creek Park, you can idle a few yards and tune up on tournament-released bass. The area in front of the ramp sets up just right for December fishing, with a 9-foot-deep hole at the no-wake buoy and grassbeds all around it. 

Chris will usually start with a moving bait like a topwater or spinnerbait to see if the bass are active. A Zara Spook Jr. worked from the edge of the grass out will often draw hard strikes from bass that have been chasing shad. If they don’t want the topwater, a spinnerbait will catch active fish. 

Chris will often start with his clients right at the Big Jim’s restaurant dock and work out to the channel cut, casting topwater a few dozen times and then going to the spinnerbait if they don’t want topwater. After a few casts, he will switch to a swimbait. 

This is a good way to check out all spots—trying different baits until the bass tell you what you want. Chris says Seminole is not a run-and-gun lake. You are likely to catch more if you slow down and work a spot to find out what the fish want that day. 

No. 2: N 30º 47.848 – W 84º 48.607 — Go out to Spring Creek past the second set of poles coming out of Big Jim’s. Between the second and third set of poles from the bank, the Spring Creek channel swings in, and there is a grass point running out to it. The channel is about 15 feet deep, and bass hold there and then run up on the flat to feed in grass about 2 feet deep. 

Keep your boat off the grass in about 15 feet of water, and work from the grass edge out to the boat. Try topwater and a spinnerbait for a few casts, especially if those baits caught fish on hole 1, but also try a soft swimbait and jerkbait.  

A shad-colored Rapala Shadow Rap worked over the submerged grass is always a good choice, and you can vary the speed based on bass activity. If they are active, try a quick jerk-jerk-pause retrieve. Chris warns that these Florida strain largemouth hate a cold front—bluebird skies are a curse on Seminole. You may have to work a jerkbait with very long pauses to get a bite or go to an even slower-moving bait. 

Fish from the point of the grassbed until you run out of deeper water.  When your boat is in 5 feet of water or less, move on to your next stop. Staying near deeper water is a key in December.

No. 3: N 30º 47.815 – W 84º 48.007 — Going up the Spring Creek channel, watch for cabins and docks to start on the left bank. Stop at the set of channel poles out from where they start. A good ledge is between those poles and the next set downstream. 

.

Toward the bank from the channel you can see a big grassbed near each set of poles, and there are clumps of grass underwater between them, too. Keep your boat in 15 feet of water, and cast to grass in 5 to 7 feet of water.  

You can try a spinnerbait, topwater, swimbait and jerkbait, but when in water a little deeper like this, Chris often starts with a sexy-shad 6 XD crankbait. He will run it into grass and then pop it loose, often drawing a bite. He usually fishes the crankbait on 15- to 20-lb. fluorocarbon line, not braid, even in the grass, since the water is so clear. 

Chris says it is important to not slap your plug on the surface of the water to knock grass off. He thinks the sound resembles an osprey hitting the surface grabbing a fish and says the bass will scatter and hide in the grass when they hear that sound. 

Work this area carefully. There are many clumps of grass that hold bass all along this channel. It is the kind of place they set up in December and feed up until ready to spawn. Then they move to the big shallow flats toward the bank to spawn as early as late January. 

No. 4: N 30º 48.135 – W 84º 47.300 — Go up to where the Wingate cut goes off to the right. There is a good channel ledge off the bank side of the Spring Creek channel with grass off it to fish. There are several dips and rises here, and the grass has several edges to fish. 

Fish the bank side of Spring Creek, and then work the right side of the channel off the first set of poles going into the Wingate’s cut. Watch for the rise and fall of the bottom and grass edges to fish. Chris says he and his partners have caught several 6-pounders here. 

It is deep enough to run your crankbait here, but Chris always gives topwater a try, and a Nichols Pro Model spinnerbait in white and silver is also something he tries on most every hole. Try fishing it slowly just over the top of the grass but give a fast buzz a try, too. 

No. 5: N 30º 46.720 – W 84º 44.539 — Go through the Wingate cut but be careful, especially on the Flint River end after the no-wake zone. Hurricane debris still clogs the channel, and Chris says you will hit it at idle speed, and if you meet a boat it is a problem. The corps just will not clean it up. 

Go up the Flint to red channel marker 11.3. About 20 yards upstream of it, on that side of the channel there is a lot of rock debris from an old ferry landing. Keep your boat out in the channel in 30 feet of water and cast up into about 7 feet of water. 

Work your crankbait from shallow to deep over the drop, then follow up with a Texas-rigged ribbon-tail worm. For fishing here and in the shallow grass on other places, Chris rigs a junebug Country Boy Po’ Boy 10-inch worm on a 1/8-oz. sinker and works it slowly in rocks and grass. He will put a 1/4-oz. sinker ahead of it for deeper grass. 

Also swim a 4 3/4-inch Country Boy Shock Shad boot-tail swimbait —fish it slowly over the rocks. That swimbait is the right size to be a good meal for bigger bass and is soft enough to have good action. 

Current really turns on the fish here and helps in other places, as does some wind blowing. As long as the wind is not so strong you can’t fish, it helps on most of these places. 

No. 6: N 30º 46.424 – W 84º 46.097 — Go downstream past Wingate’s to where the channel swings into the bank at a small island near red channel marker 7.3. A cut runs off the Flint channel behind the island and grass lines it. The bottom jumps from 30 feet deep to 7 feet, and then the grassline starts. The bass use the cut to push bass into the grass and confine them to feed on them.

Start on the river channel and work into the cut, casting to the edge of the grass with a variety of baits. Some days the fish are very sluggish and slow baits work better. A slowly worked Shadow Rap will work, but the Po Boy worm, crawled down and through the grass, will often out-fish all other baits. 

Chris rigs his 10-inch worm with 1/8-oz. sinker but does not peg it. He says if you peg your sinker it will not have as good action as an unpegged bait does. Go to a 1/4-oz. sinker when working deeper than 10 feet, and Chris often dips the tail of his junebug worm in chartreuse JJ’s Magic. 

No. 7: N 30º 45.518 – W 84º 50.527 — The Sealey cut goes off the river at marker 4.5. Another set of poles join it at River Junction at the third set of poles in Sealey Cut. One pole has a green 509 sign—start at it. There is a good grass edge near the 12-foot-deep channel here where bass hold before going up on the big flats to spawn. 

Keep your boat in 12 feet of water, and work the grass on the upstream side of the channel. Cast to visible grassbed edges, but watch for underwater grass, too. The water is usually clear enough in December to see down several feet, so you can spot cuts, rises and falls and points in the underwater grass, key places to hit. 

No. 8: N 30º 46.309 – W 84º 91.481 — Downstream of Ship Island, at the last island between Spring Creek and the Flint River there is a green channel marker that has a broken number sign with only “.7” showing. This is where Spring Creek dumps into the river and that junction is a hotspot for December bass.  You can see a long grass point coming off the island, and it runs out to near the junction. There is a single white PVC pipe near the end of it and a couple of double PVC markers on the creek side. 

Start on the river side of the grass point and work around it, casting all your baits to the grass and fishing it carefully. Sometimes bass will be on one side of the point or the other, sometimes they’ll be scattered all around the point. Work it carefully to find how they are setting up, paying attention to wind and current direction. 

No. 9: N 30º 44.460 – W 84º 52.745 — Just off the last island between the Flint and Chattahoochee rivers, an old Indian mound is marked by five poles set in a big circle. The water around it is about 14 feet deep, but it tops out a couple feet deep. 

Chris says you can catch fish all around the mound, but the upstream Chattahoochee River end forms a pinch point between it and the island. He will start on the upstream end and work around the island side to the downstream side. Keep your boat in about 14 feet of water, and work your baits from 2 feet deep out to the boat. 

No. 10: N 30º 46.572 – W 84º 51.935 — Go into Fish Pond Drain to the confusing group of poles where the Fish Pond channel meets the channel going to Cypress Pond. Stop at the pole with the small red 573 sign. A good ledge runs on the right side of the channel with grassbeds around it. 

Fish this entire area carefully. A 3/4-oz. Nichols Flutter Spoon is tough to fish because of the grass, but it is good on all these areas. Let it fall to the bottom, snatch it up out of the grass, and let it fall back. Chris says it is worth the effort to fish it. 

This area is where he caught his 10-pounder. It holds big fish. There are a variety of channels and grassbed edges to explore here, and bass hold on them to move up Fish Pond Drain and Cypress Pond to spawn, so it holds a lot of fish, too. 

Chris says he knows of five 10-lb. plus bass that have been caught on Seminole this year. Your personal best is out there waiting! Check out these holes with Chris’s baits or your favorites to catch Seminole bass in December. 

You can call Chris at 229.481.5550 to book a guide trip to get him to show you his methods personally. Also check out his “Lake Semionole Ramblings” podcast on your favorite platform.