Catch Sinclair Bass Between The Fronts

Brad Stalnaker is headed to the All-American in May, a pretty big deal. In this article, he shares winter tactics on Lake Sinclair, his home lake. It all boils down to fishing certain baits slowly around rocks, docks and grass.

It is a dreary, drizzly Monday morning as the throbbing Mercury idles its Ranger bass boat away from Little River Marina on Lake Sinclair. There is one other vehicle besides ours in the parking lot; no trailer behind it. Apparently, we have the lake to ourselves. This end, at least.

So, where are we headed? Options from decades of fishing trips past on this lake race through my head; most of my favorites, however, happen to be several miles upriver. But on this trip, I keep opinions to myself. I’m in the boat with one of the very best Lake Sinclair bass fishermen going these days: Brad Stalnaker. He’ll know where to start.

And when, within 50 feet of the ramp, he picks up a rod and begins working the rip-rap along Highway 441, traffic roaring by above, I have to smile. Many years ago, fishing a February tournament here, about every third or fourth cast it was necessary to dip my rod into the lake to clear ice from the guides. I caught a 2-pounder on this very stretch—the only fish boated all day! Chalked it up to blind luck and promised myself never to get back on the water in 25-degree weather without a shotgun in my hand!

Brad’s tossing a chartreuse-and-white spinnerbait, following it up with a chunk-dressed jig, then a crankbait. We’ll get to all of them in a bit. My plan for now is to heed what Daddy told me long ago: “You ain’t learning nothing when you’re talking.” One can almost see the wheels turning as Stalnaker works the bank. After five or so minutes, the process gives utterance to what he’s thinking: “If you run by rocks this time of year, you’re crazy.”

Welcome to winter fishing, which is carried out by juggling dates and settling on one between cold fronts, both severe and mild. We’re flush on the heels of a bad one. But deadlines being what they are, things boil down to the fact that we gotta go now.

A big jig and a Frittside 5 crankbait are two of Brad’s top-four baits for February on Sinclair. He adds a spinnerbait to that list, and one that may surprise a lot of anglers this time of year—a black buzzbait.

Stalnaker, 46, knows there are various and sundry species of fish plying their craft within Sinclair’s 15,330 acres. But if it’s not a largemouth bass, he couldn’t care less. Name a bass tournament and he’s fished it—very well. BASS, MLF, ABA Pro Series, Berry’s, Toyota Series… This is not a puffed-up pro—and I’ve fished with a couple of those—so when he tells you that he has qualified for the 2025 BFL All-American to be held in May in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and says that it is “a pretty big deal”—then it is.

Brad is also a Lake Country Pro Staff member, helping with content on the site owned by Jim Lumpkin and focuses on fishing lakes Oconee and Sinclair. You can learn more at https://lakecountryfishing.com.

Sinclair is home, literally. He grew up on this lake, and every dock is an old friend, as I discover over the next seven hours. He meticulously sifts this pattern and that with the mind of a superb tournament fisherman. The process is fascinating to watch.

This lake has some 417 miles of shoreline, and although we didn’t hit it all, what we did cover was like Stalnaker’s living room. If you’re planning a trip here this month, here’s how to not be overwhelmed by all that water: think rocks, docks and grass.

“This is winter fishing,” Stalnaker says. “We’re fishing right behind a severe cold front, with rain and snow and sleet. If you get five to seven bites a day, you’ve done fairly well. The percentage of what you’re able to put into the boat out of those is what counts. That front didn’t push the water temperature down all that much, so it’s still right around 48 to 50 degrees. What we need is some sun to pop out and warm those rocks and other structure.

“Too, finding bait is a really big deal in winter. If baitfish aren’t showing up on your electronics, you can eliminate that dead water quickly. Bait shows up as big balls on the graph; find that and bass won’t be far away.”

The water in this Little River area around the Highway 441 bridges is fairly stained as Brad flips the black-and-blue jig dressed with a twin-tailed, black plastic trailer.

“I’m flipping in 8 to 10 feet of water around the docks, and I’ll move in a little shallower when the sun comes out and warms the water some. I could probably have pulled out a shaky-head jig or something like that today and caught a limit of bass. But that’s not how I fish this time of year, and that’s not going to produce your winning bag at the end of the day in a tournament. That big bag is going to come off this 1/2-oz. Slide Rite jig, that big-bladed spinnerbait or that crankbait.”

This author snapped this photo of the right bait ball that Brad is looking for when stopping to fish an area January-March.

There’s one other lure to be mentioned—which is a happenstance rare among tournament fishermen. Most guard knowledge of their favorites as if it should be sheltered in Fort Knox. Not this guy.

“Ain’t no secrets out here on tackle,” he says with a laugh. “But we all fish a little differently. Presentation is the key. There’s a thousand ways to fish a jig and pig. A jig with a Zoom chunk is a great lure, but I may be swimming it, I may be jigging it gently or I may be dragging it; who knows? I might be fishing the same lure behind another guy who’s catching and won’t get a bite, or the other way around. When it comes to putting that lure in front of a fish, you don’t want something flapping around a lot when you’re working in cold water. Everything slows down, and you want a subtle fall to a jig and a slower retrieve on other baits.”

He is, by the way, one of the best jig flippers I’ve ever seen. If there’s a spot that needs to be reached, that jig will skip its way into it, under, over or around.

We’re working the boat slowly—for the moment—which is highly appreciated. The big motor roars briefly as we head to the Dennis Station ramp, Stalnaker pausing to check off water along the way. He makes a good point upon getting there.

“We fish tournaments out of Dennis a lot, so fish are released right here at the end of the day. You never know when they might decide to just hang around.”

Same theory applies to that rip-rap at Little River Park…

There had been a nonchalant spinnerbait bump there, but a grassbed at the back of the Dennis Station cove produced the first bent rod of the morning. This time it’s the crankbait. And a battered one at that.

“January through March on Sinclair, Oconee or Lanier, a red crankbait is hard to beat,” Stalnaker comments. “This one, a Frittside 5, is my favorite. You can see it’s been beat to pieces, but there’s really no telling how many bass this thing has produced. And whether you’re fishing it or the spinnerbait, you want to go slow.

“Sometimes you want to repeat a cast to the same spot, especially if it just looks like there ought to be a bass there, or experience tells you there’s been one there before. If I get a light strike and miss on the spinnerbait, I’m always going to follow up immediately with the jig.”

The Frittside crankbait, by the way, was designed by legendary pro David Fritts, who used a crankbait to win the 1993 Bassmaster Classic on Alabama’s Lake Logan Martin. That happens to be the first one I fished in as a press angler. FYI, he’s a classy, top-notch guy—as opposed to the prima donna I was in the boat with opening morning all those years ago. Another story for another time…

When fishing the Classic, you gotta be on your toes; and when the trolling motor is jerked up with no warning, you’d best get your butt on a seat as quickly as possible. Those guys get ready to move in a trice, and it’s heave-ho and off we go. With Brad, there was a noticeable difference. Granted, he’s on his home lake and can race to likely hotspots at a moment’s notice. But that’s not what I’m seeing.

“I’m not running all over the lake trying to make fish bite,” he says. “I’m looking for that one that wants to bite. Again, that’s winter fishing. You can see fish all over the graph, but if they’re not interested in your presentation, it’s a waste of time. That’s something you can’t afford in tournament fishing.”

There are 30-plus rods and reels in this boat; box upon box of assorted lures, well into the hundreds. But I come away highly impressed with the way Stalnaker uses his decades of knowledge to simplify things, minimizing to a total of four baits. He fishes HIS way. He’s trying to show me—so I can tell you—the simplest and best methods of catching wintertime bass here.

You’ve seen three of those baits; the fourth will probably come as a surprise.

We’ve headed upriver, and should you care to plug in a brand-new, can’t-miss, wake-up call, try three or four miles at 70 per in a Ranger atop Sinclair. And I’ve waited until now to apprise you of the fact that air temp is all the way up to 42 degrees.

A mite breezy…

We swing left up the Oconee River arm and hone in upon a few more coves and docks of Stalnaker’s acquaintance. This is when the black buzzbait—the what?—comes out, skittering and chirping across the surface.

“This is not typically a bait to use this time of year, especially on a cold, gloomy day like this. But if you catch a fish, it’s going to be the one you want. You’ll take that one to the scales.”

Water up here is noticeably clearer than where we started; what’s not noticeable is bait. We troll in and out, the graphs showing water well abreast the boat.

Empty. No bait, no bass. Little River, here we come.

When I first contacted Brad about this trip, he immediately set a goal.

A goal of one fish.

“I knew it was going to be tough working in and around these cold fronts, but that’s the name of the game from January to March,” he says on the way back. “But I wanted that one picture fish, one that you could put on the cover. I just got in from Florida last night after fishing Lake Toho and didn’t even realize that it was supposed to be raining here this morning. I said we’d work hard at it until three o’clock, so I want to hit that stained water a little more. The one thing I did see down there was bait, so we know bass are around.”

Back off that rip-rap, he watched the LiveScope as a big fish followed the jig upward—and refused to nail it. In fact, there were two, neither a taker.

But he did boat another good Sinclair chunk (jig) and top the seven-bite total. Me? I didn’t pick up a rod, preferring to watch and learn.

The rain spit and sputtered throughout the morning; the sun slid seductively out from behind cloud cover for maybe 30 seconds all day. Had we had a couple more days behind that massive front, a little sun, possibly a few degrees rise…

At any rate, I’m sold on these techniques. They’re simple, so we haven’t thrown so much “Try this and this over here and over yonder” at you. And they’re proven; you don’t amass Stalnakers’s tournament results with luck alone. The tricks now are to pick the proper days between severe weather fronts—and work on your presentation.