I had some free time today so I spent it researching and taking notes.. so I put together a compilation of info found on these boards by various posters regarding forage.. I did my best to organize it by season.. Feel free to add anything you want. I just wanted to make a little “cheat sheet” to study up on this winter.. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winter (48 degrees and below) – The primary forage for bass during the winter is crawfish. Bass are cold blood animals and eat less in cold water and more in warm water. They want to spend the least amount of energy possible to eat the food highest in protein. The baitfish and crawdads are also cold blooded, and their behavior and location are key to where the bass will be located. Crawdads are good winter to late pre spawn and fall bait. LMB tend to target the baitfish more during summer and fall transition. In general terms, bass eat less often in cold water below 50 degrees and prefer small size prey or high protein. Crawdads do not hibernate, they go deep in winter, but are still available as a food source. I see smaller crawdads in daylight hours, I see larger ones in low light conditions or dark. Depends on temps, but normally its about 3 weeks to hatch. Most hatches occur from the middle of May to the middle of June, again, water temps dictate that. Example, Toledo Bend normally has its annual mudbug hatch sometime in June, more in the middle to third week, the mudbug hatch is on. In winter, after 3 nice days of warm water, the jig and or craw is the best ticket. After 3 nice days of warmer weather in the dead of winter, break that Jig n pig out and soak it slow, slow enough to watch the hook "rust”, that’s a bit longer than "watching paint dry".  Watch the line, jig bites in the winter for me is constant line watching. This is the time of the year, that a bass inhales or sucks that jig up, it’s not a thump most of the time, and the only time you really feel that bass is on the exhale and it’s too late.

 

Pre-Spawn (48-55 degrees) – Bass begin to move towards spawning areas from deep winter haunts. They will stop at structure and cover as the migrate across the migration routes. They will begin to feed on any prey that it can fit into its mouth. In warm water above 50 degrees, pre-spawn fish are hungry and will look for whatever is an easy meal. 

 

Spawn (55-68 degrees) – Food isn’t on their menu. Beds and Fry are their top priority. Bass will not strike out of hunger during this time, only out of protective instincts. Bed fishing is a classification of its own. 

 

Post-Spawn (68-72 degrees) – Bass will leave the nests and seek out safe harbor to rest from the spawning process. During this time, after bass leave the nests, bluegill and shad will both begin to spawn. Bass will eat small bluegill under 5" if nothing else is available. Bass know thy prey, they know they are shallow, EASY, and protecting their nests. Bass seek these meals. They are tired, and recovering from a long-drawn-out process and chasing prey is the last thing on their minds when they know where the easiest prey is. Bass will enter the shallows as early as February for pre-spawn and will not set up deep after the bluegill spawn until the beginning of June. This don't mean a bass won't go deep, just they aren't far from prime EASY feeding areas during this time frame. Those areas are the shallows where multiple species have already spawned, and fry are all over the shallows. I'm a firm believer that bigger female bass cruise the shallows at night looking for the easy targets during post spawn, the perch.

Threadfin shad spawn in shallow water coves from late April into July, depending on the surface water temperature. The optimum spawning water temperature is 68 degrees.

 

Summer (72 degrees and warmer) - Summer is the easiest time of year to pattern bass. It is when the weather finally stabilizes. Fall and winter has the winds, temps, and barometric pressure changing frequently, this makes for changing conditions which leads to tougher fishing as far as stable patterns goes. Summer also brings shad into my equation as well. Shad are creatures of habit as well. As mentioned, shad seek cover in low light conditions. Shad don't adjust to those low light conditions like a bass does. A bass would rather ambush its prey from a low light position, like shade from a tree for example. When the sunrises, the top water bite fades due to shad leaving for deeper waters for the day, just as evening arrives, shad move back to the shallow cover for safety and the evening topwater bite turns on. The summer pattern is normally good from mid-June until Sept. All Shad species hide in cover at night. Shad prefer one side of the lake it would be the wind-blown side because the plankton drift with the waves or current. The shad don't go up streams, they stay in the lake. Its only real limitation is its intolerance to cold water. It likes calm, shallow water and it rarely exceeds three inches in length. Both threadfin and gizzard shad are silvery-white in color and have distinctly forked tails. The threadfin's tail, however, has just a shade of yellow while the gizzard shad's tail does not. Both species often have a distinct black dot on the shoulder, behind the gills.Threadfin shad live primarily on microscopic plant and animal life, phytoplankton, and zooplankton, which is why they are often found around rock riprap, bridge and dock pilings, and areas with gentle current where algae grow or is washed into the system. They are more surface-oriented than gizzard shad, and frequently move in huge schools just under the surface, sometimes migrating for miles each day. The schools of shad are nearly always followed by schools of bass. It is now well-established that massive concentrations of threadfin shad seek shoreline cover each night. This cover can take the form of grass and moss beds, logjams, or even standing timber and brush piles if that's all that's available. This cover provides them with some semblance of protection from predators like largemouth bass. Early in the morning, generally shortly after dawn, the threadfin leaves this shallow water cover for deeper haunts where they may disperse slightly for the balance of the midday period and early afternoon hours. The threadfin then re-group and return to the shallow water cover late in the afternoon, frequently by reversing the same exit route they used that morning. The shad have already moved in for the night or have not left for the day. Why does the morning action frequently end just after the sun peeks over the trees? Because the shad have left and the bass are following, but not necessarily feeding on them. The best thing to do is immediately check any areas where you see and experience surface activity between bass and shad with a depth finder to determine what's on the bottom. The shad may be following a ditch, small creek channel, or some other specific terrain feature you may then be able to backtrack to their nightly hideout.

 

Fall (10 degrees below the year’s warmest water) – Bass key in on small shad usually no larger than 3 inches. Shad will begin to move into the creeks and pockets in search of cooler water and will be surface oriented. Look for balls of bait. Where there is bait, there is bass. Use specific shad colors based on water clarity.

Take a look at my 1974 Cosmic Clock and Bass Calendar (internet search), it’s all defined.

Tom

Amazing these rules of thumb were compiled in 1974.

2 hours ago, einscodek said:

Amazing these rules of thumb were compiled in 1974.

I am kind of old you know👨‍🦳

Tom

Hardly a forage season to think of down here in the south Florida everglades. The skinny water seems to boil and stays that way year round. Water temps went over 100 degrees this year, extra hot! The bass stay hungry, very mad, and will annihilate just about anything that can gets in their way, including fishing lures!