17 replies to this topic

[snuffleupawhat]

I'm fairly new to the sport, and while fishing a few neighborhood lakes i frequent today i noticed a couple fish on my way out that appeared to be bass rolling around on the shore. they were bass like in profile and had a black lateral line, but there bellies were uncommonly white... at one point the largest of the three was tailing like a redfish while the other two rolled around it i casted to them numerous times and spooked them, but less than five minutes later they were back. i've only been fishing for a few months now and any beds i saw i assumed belonged to the numerous talapia and i was under the impression that this would at the latest be the end of the spawning cycle. could they be spawning this late?

[reason]

Carp

[snuffleupawhat]

thanks.

[North Ga Hillbilly]

Defiantly sounds like carp. But I have caught pre spawn bass in the middle of the summer, some females will produce eggs off schedule.

NGaHB

[WookieeJedi]

They don't all spawn within 2 months, the species would be long gone by now. If we get weird temperatures (like this year) you can start catching spawning fish in December and January, and can continue to get some spawning fish up into April and June. The early and late waves of spawning fish are not as numerous as the right-on-timers. I will probably go out on this next moon phase and catch a few up shallow on my way to the channel. Sometimes you get a nice surprise.

[WRB]

You perfectly described largemouth bass spawning; Dark lateral line and white bellies.
When bass are in the egg laying phase of the spawn cycle, they will not bite and no interest in anything other then spawning. When selecting bed sites or protecting the bed before and after the eggs are laid, then you can make the bass garding the bed site strike, but not eat your lure.
Typically the spawning cycle; pre spawn/spawn/post spawn can last up to 3 months depending on weather conditions,and water temperatures where you fish.
Tom

[Hookerz N' BassHolez]

Up here in the Chicagoland area where I fish, we're in the prespawn. I've been getting some nice chunkers full of eggs. Spawn is usually in May for us up here.

[Catt]

I think it would be extremely helpful if y'all would fill out your profile so we would know where you are from.

When bass spawn varies from Michigan to Louisiana & Oregon to Florida

[B@ssCrzy]

Up here in the Chicagoland area where I fish, we're in the prespawn. I've been getting some nice chunkers full of eggs. Spawn is usually in May for us up here.

x2...Still have not seen them on the beds yet. Hoping to go out tonight to see if they are up shallow.

[NBR]

What Catt said. Fish operate on their calendar not the one we use and the fish calendar differs from from ours. You can go to Floria and fish the spawn in January and follow that north into Canada and fish the spawn into late June maybe July. Even at a single location the spawn can stretch out over a period of weeks.

[Michael DiNardo]

What Catt said!

Mike

[snuffleupawhat]

i apologize for not having a completed profile i'll get right on that, but im in central florida right outside of tampa. WRB gave me the courage to go out again, and these fish were all located at the northwest corner of the lake, there's still old beds from the tilapia so it's hard for me to make out what is theres, i had it in my head they'd be laying on top of them like a hen, not the case. they're swimming back and forth covering about a 5 ft radius. i casted for about an hour and nothing i'd overcast and reel back in to them, drop it on their heads, and finally i was able to get one taker after about an hour.



there's this cow that's swimming relatively close to the above pictured fish, that i for the life of me could not cast to without sending it away. are there any techniques that would increase my chances? mind you we're going through a pretty extreme cold front right now(it feels like october outside), how long after the weather returns to normal should i wait to give it another shot?

[Sam]

Yep.

A few years back I was fishing with a friend on the Rappahannock River outside of Richmond, Virginia, and we saw a school of bass fry in July.

It was a second spawn for that river that year.

[Bass Junkie]

I regularly seepond(!), bass spawning the first of June around here, but that's with a regular winter....

[WookieeJedi]

The best advice I ever got about bed fishing is to keep the smaller male fish in the well while you keep tossing to the bedded female. With that hyperactive buck gone, eventually, she will get angry enough to strike. I'm not going to tell you how long I tried doing it wrong, but it was longer than it should have been. You think I would have figured that out after catching the same fish over and over a few times.