Winter spotty fishing...

Ok, so I get quite a few messages from people looking for advice and what not, and lately I have been getting quite a few that are basically saying:
"Hey Kevin, I thought you said the winter time was the best time for spotties... I can't seem to find any of them. I'm lucky if I even get bit right now, it's so slow!"

True, In my opinion the best time to nail not only a ton of spotties, but chunky ones, is between December to the end of February, January being the absolute best month. It's also true that both bays have been slow for them lately, SD Bay being better with numbers as always. Now, take a peek at this...

I took a pic of my sea temperature log and just figured I would share this with whoever gives two you know whats...

Take a look at January and February from 2006-2013. Safe to say 57-60 for every single one of them. Now look at 2014... 60-61, and for this month so far its been 61-62.

The spotties chew hard when it's colder, especially at night. Is it just a fluke that it's been dead at the best months of the year while they have been the warmest months in at least the last 8 years? Well, I don't think so. No fluke. Water temp has been up, spotty action has been down. Sorry guys I can't control mother nature. I can at least say there has been a valid reason for me to even keep a temp log now lol.

On a more positive note, these warmer water temps are making other types of fishing go off. If you are into sharks/ray, you need to be soaking some bait at night time right now. They are evrywhere, some nice ones too. The surface bite should be starting up here pretty soon, cudas and vinas will be a target for me soon. As far as surf fishing goes, I'm hopeful that the sand crabs make an earlier showing than normal so we can get a jump on summertime fishing in the spring. If the crabs are there, the corbina and spotfin are there. Xing fingers.

As far as spotty fishing goes, this summer may either be a bust, or really awesome if you like throwing reaction baits for them. Spinnerbaits, blot throwers, anything with a little flash rules in the summer for spotties. We'll have to wait and see.

 

Kellen I have a new respect for you. I thought I was the only one logging anything lol. There still is a chance I'm not insane.

 

The spreadsheet thing sounds cool.

As far as actually fishing goes, current means nothing to me. I probably catch more fish at slack tide than any other tide. Scent means nothing to me either. I rarely use it.
I wasn't saying I needed help, the whole reason for the post was to give my .02 about why I believe it's been slower than previous years(at this time of year). Everyone I've ever given advise to about good spotty fishing knows that I tell them to get out during the winter because of how good it is. This year has been different. You may be finding fish and that's great, but others aren't finding much. I haven't been out much myself but I do keep in touch with people who are always out so Im at least in the loop for the most part.
Right now the most productive areas are not from the shoreline, so unless you have a boat, yak, or tube you are just chillin. I have a tube, just no time for it.

 

I use photobucket. And since you take pics with your phone, you can upload through their app and edit them or just post them raw.

 

Ok, maybe for better clarification I should have mentioned I was mainly referring to shore based fishing, as I usually do. My bad.
Those are some nice fish you nailed, congrats. Those are normally what we get into this time of year from the shoreline, it's just not happening. It's also obvious the fish are in deeper colder water, more support for my observation and personal theory.
Not many nice spotties caught during the bass tourney recently out of a ton of anglers, but I'm pretty sure not many of the participants focused on the marina either. The marinas always hold nice fish, with the exception of J st.
Keep whackin them dude, your pics will make others want to get into tubin while shore fishing is at a basic hault(for spotties).