Photo by Russell Tinsley.

Good friend Jim Givens and I were bundled up so heavily that we could barely move as we prepared to slide the little aluminum fishing boat off its trailer and into the definitely warm waters of Linn County’s La Cygne Reservoir. New to Kansas then -- a resident of fewer than two years -- I’d caught plenty of bass since arriving, but most of them were small and taken as a result of bank-fishing at small lakes like Lake Olathe, in Johnson County, and Douglas State Fishing Lake, south of Lawrence.

Having gotten a boat, I couldn’t wait to try it out. I mean that literally: On the morning that Givens and I decided to visit La Cygne, the air temperature at the boat ramp was 17 degrees, and we really needed to get aboard. Thank goodness the wind wasn’t blowing for that frigid sunrise!

Even without the wind, the only close-to-comfortable way to navigate from the ramp to the area we intended to fish was to move barely above idle. It wouldn’t have taken much to get that short, light aluminum bass rig up on plane. Doing so, however, would’ve exposed us to frostbite in a heartbeat. February fishing in Kansas can be that cold -- for the anglers.

At places like La Cygne and Coffee County Reservoir, however, the fish don’t feel the freeze. These early-season jewels of Kansas bassin’ are power-plant lakes into which water heated by its use in cooling the generators is released.

So consider this: You’re talking bass fishing with some friends, and one of them tells you he knows of a place where you can catch keepers in less than 4 feet of water on shallow-running crankbaits -- on a 17-degree February morning! How should you react? You should believe it. That’s exactly what happened on that frigid February day in Linn County. Givens and I would position the boat 15 to 20 yards out from the bank, and get close to the outlet. Then, we’d let the current from the hot-water release drift us away from the outlet and along the shoreline as we threw crankbaits at the shore. I’d made a cast and cranked the reel maybe three times when a 17-inch chunk of Sunflower State largemouth attacked my lure with a vengeance.

It was amazing! But it happens all the time in February at La Cygne and Coffee County. They are, without question, the best bets for early-season bass outings in Kansas. That said, however, they’re not the only places where you can enjoy some good action.

“La Cygne and Coffee County definitely are fascinating places to bass-fish in February,” said Kyle Austin, fisheries biologist with Kansas’ Department of Wildlife and Parks. “They are the places in Kansas where you can experience the thrill of catching aggressive bass -- fish that act like it’s late spring -- in the middle of a cold winter.”

Largemouth bass are the calling cards at La Cygne, and anglers can enjoy some outstanding action within a few hundred yards of that hot-water outlet. If you decide to give it a try, have some run-and-gun baits along, including the aforementioned shallow-running crankbaits and some spinnerbaits. You also should have some plastic worms that you can fish Texas-rigged. Think of a February trip to La Cygne much like a late-spring trip to just about any other Kansas reservoir.

“Coffee County has a smallmouth fishery that’s pretty good,” Austin said. So in addition to the baits mentioned above, your arsenal for Coffee County should include some crawdad imitations like soft-plastic baits that you can rig on a stand-up jighead. Fishing shoreline cover and structure relatively close to the hot-water outlet is the general recipe for success. If you have a surface-temperature gauge on your boat, use it to figure out the area that will provide you with the best action. You may be surprised at how far it extends away from the outlet.

Elsewhere around Kansas, you’ll also find at least decent bass fishing on many different lakes during February, if the weather cooperates -- and sometimes that can be a big “if.”