Anyone smell skunk?

[Bender]

Mallen, I imagine your conditions are similar to ours so I would say if you got the warm up that we did then they are all on beds or getting ready. I went out yesterday and caught 3 pike, 2 small and one decent sized. No bass, couldn't find any.

This evening I hit a different lake and tried to use my head for once. From my experience fishing the spawn on Grand Lake in Michigan I remembered that 98% of the fish were in 2% of the water for the spawn. Not the 90-10 rule that normally applies. I just started cruising depths from 2' to as deep as I could see bottom (5-6') until I started seeing bass spook off beds. Once I saw a few I tried to figure out the depth and what they were on, usually rocks and not stumps or wood this time.

I would suggest three baits for the spawn up there. Drop shotting a very small bait seems to work the best by far, 3" or shorter. After that tubes and to cover a big spawning area I like a Spook/Sammy. One other thing that I should have tried but didn't that would be good for "blind" fishing beds that you can't see is a split shot rig with a small fry or ring worm. For plastics I like a light green color, maybe it looks like a perch to them.

I suggest moving a lot to try to find them and using something on the bottom. Once you find once then fish the heck out of that area just dragging a bait very slowly back to the boat if you can't see the beds. It may be difficult to find them but once you do it will be gangbusters. Good luck!