10 Spring Fishing Tips.

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10 Tips for Spring Bass

Spring may be the best time of the year to catch largemouth bass, but lots of fishermen don’t make the most of it. Far too many of us tend to fish the same way day after day, randomly casting along shorelines in a hit or miss fashion. If the bass don’t cooperate, we figure they just aren’t feeding and let it go at that. Sure, we manage to catch a few bass, but that’s because even a blind hog will find an acorn occasionally. If this sounds familiar, it’s time to make some changes. This means giving more thought to things like weather, water temperature and the changing patterns bass adapt to as they go through their long spawning cycles. The following tactics can get you started on the right track. Use them and you’ll not only catch more bass this spring, but you’ll also have a much better shot at hooking into a lunker.

1. Get Started Early: One thing that bass have in common with us is that they think about spawning a long time before they get around to it. That means largemouths – and especially the biggest females – often begin making forays into shallows to check out spawning areas weeks, even months, before the first leaves appear on the trees. During this prespawn period, it’s not unusual to make outstanding catches in March and April, even February or earlier from the mid-Atlantic states on south. One key is to fish during warm spells in the early spring, especially if these periods last several days. It doesn’t take a heat wave to launch big bass on a feeding spree. Often daytime highs in the upper 50s will do it. Look for two distinct patterns. If it’s still early in the spring, fish points and deeper shorelines in water four to eight feet deep using spinnerbaits, rattling minnow lures, jig n pigs or diving crankbaits. Bass use these mid-depths as transitional staging areas before they move shallow into the shallows. Don’t neglect the shallows, however. Even early, big bass often move inshore, but a cold snap will quickly force them back to deeper water. When you find bass in shallow areas, they’ll be hungry. Try them with spinnerbaits, rattling lures or shallow diving minnow imitations.

2. Fish the Weather Fronts: Those warm periods in the spring are frequently followed by bitter, fast moving cold fronts. Knowledgeable bass fishermen learn to look for these patterns because the best fishing is likely to occur on the last warm day before that sharp cold front passes through. Sometimes fishing peaks as the wind begins to rise and the weather deteriorates. Ideally, you’d like to start fishing in your shirt sleeves and finish in a goose down jacket. Slow moving fronts that don’t create sharp and rapid drops in temperature aren’t usually as reliable, but they may still provide decent fishing. After a cold front passes you’ll almost invariably have very poor fishing the first couple of cold, clear days.

3. Keep Track of the Water Temperature: Get a thermometer and use it. Although it is possible to catch early spring bass in nasty weather in 40 degree water, your chances improve greatly after the surface water temperature passes 50 degrees. For many anglers, the magic mark seems to be about 57 degrees. At that point, and as water temperatures rise into the 60s, bass often become more active both in mid-depth staging areas and increasingly in the shallows. Largemouth bass begin active spawning when the water temperature reaches 68 to 72 degrees F, and some bass eat less often when they’re actively bedding. However, all bass don’t spawn at the same time. Even at the peak of spawning there will be plenty of fish still feeding aggressively, including some that haven’t spawned yet and some that may have finished. Where it’s legal, it’s also possible to catch fish while they’re on their beds, although such fish should certainly be released. The trick is to approach quietly and use smaller lures or lightly weighted plastic worms and lizards. Even a bass that’s not feeding will sometimes attack these baits simply to remove the threat.