Hey guys, me and my buddy have been seeing a lot of beds for a couple weeks now, but we've yet to see a single fish on or around the beds. I always just assumed once the beds were made, there would be fish around them until the males were done guarding the fry.

 

Maybe I assume wrong? 

 

Could you guys explain to me how this works and what I should be seeing? 

I've seen this before too.  Both largemouth and smallmouth.  I assume what occurred is that the beds were made and the spawn "started" but a change in local weather pushed them back out.  Either that or it simply occurred really quickly and they already finished, and you simply missed them.

1 hour ago, snowplow said:

Hey guys, me and my buddy have been seeing a lot of beds for a couple weeks now, but we've yet to see a single fish on or around the beds. I always just assumed once the beds were made, there would be fish around them until the males were done guarding the fry.

 

Maybe I assume wrong? 

 

Could you guys explain to me how this works and what I should be seeing? 

 

where are you located and what's your current water temp?  Are you sure they are bass beds?  The bass come in and spawn almost the same time as bluegills.  This year they have overlapped because of the water temperatures staying in the low to mid 60's for so long.  I think for us here in NJ, we had a warm spell that pushed water temps into the 60's, but it was earlier in the year than the bass were ready to spawn.  Then it cooled into the high 50's and the fish backed off again.  Then when it warmed again, every fish came and went pretty quickly.  The bluegills started spawning 2 weeks ago amidst this and when I fished on the 15th I saw bass on beds next to bluegill on beds.  Definitely different bed types, separated by 20' or so.

 

Bluegill will bed close to each other.  You'll get them in a honeycomb pattern or similar.  The bass will have more individual beds with more separation from each other.  Bluegill don't much care about cover around the bed while bass prefer to be up against 'something' if they can.  Bluegill spawn all summer now so you'll see beds until the fall and fish will be around them.  Bass will spawn and the males will guard the beds for a while.  Once the fry hatch though the males won't be around long.  I don't know the exact numbers of days, but at most a week from when the females stop dropping eggs the males will be gone.