Fish are always activated by the flow of water, but during the coldest months of the year current can be just about the only thing that gets the cold-blooded creatures to feed.

MLF Bass Pro Tour Pro Brandon Coulter offers sage advice for finding bass in moving water. “The key to fishing in current – without exception – is eddies. You’re looking for current breaks and eddies. You want enough flow that those fish aren’t comfortable in the stream. As long as they’re not comfortable in the stream, they’re gonna be in eddies which is going to put them in places where you can get after them.”

Coulter calls the uppermost sections of the Tennessee River his home waters, particularly Watts Bar Reservoir. On a recent chilly morning this writer was fortunate to share his boat on the tailrace of Lake Chickamauga, just below the dam that forms Watts Bar.

“They’re gonna be on shad. We’re on the Tennessee River so shad is going to be their forage.”  A small selection of likely suspects lay on the deck of Coulter’s Falcon bass boat. He started with a crankbait. The bass weren’t having it.

Coulter soon raised a follower on the Nessie – Berkley’s new soft glide bait that won Best of Show at last summer’s ICAST convention in Orlando. It comes in 3 sizes. Coulter immediately
downshifted from the 7-incher he was swimming though the top of the water column to a more shadlike 5-inch model.

Multiple bass closed the deal on the 5-inch swimbait, including some fine specimens.

Then, as if just to show off, Coulter caught a big striped bass. The explosion was crazy, the fight was fun to watch. Multiple species are sure to stack up just out of the moving water. They keep you on your toes.

As winter weather grips your waters, go with the flow and bet on the current.

Important note: use extra caution in high current areas and never approach too closely to a dam or other heavy discharge structure.