I have never seen a single spawning bed in Maine,  perhaps because I'm so low in my canoe, so I've never seen bass building beds, on beds, or vacating beds. I have seen a rare bass with a bloodied, ragged fin. Just one this year. So, absent such visual information, how do I know when the spawn has ended?

 

I ask because I've spent many hours targeting deeper water adjacent to shallow flats to hook some big girls with some success and I'm wondering when this tactic might be less successful.

Are blue gill up shallow and very abundant? That’s usually a sign. And the ragged  out bloody fish is a sign as well. Here in Iowa we are through the spawn. I went out this weekend. The bite has died off a lot and we got a cold front. That’s not helping. But they are tired. And blue gill have moved up now and on beds. They are everywhere. 

5 minutes ago, Joedodge said:

Are blue gill up shallow and very abundant?

 

We don't have bluegills.

 

We're still cool here, with temps in the low forties at night and low to mid-fifties by day. So, I'm thinking the spawn is still happening. I just want a sense of what might signal its end when it does come. 

Ohh welp see I’m no help. lol. That is cool. Wow. Water temps may not even be high enough yet then. What always weirded me out. And I get it. Its nature.  is how they all don’t spawn at the same time. Some are early some are late. One pond or lake is done but another isn’t. Pretty neat stuff really 

1 minute ago, Joedodge said:

One pond or lake is done but another isn’t. Pretty neat stuff really 

 

Yeah, we're fishing for the same species, but not in the same circumstances. And I agree, the complexity of the puzzle is "pretty neat stuff really."

Last year I caught a bunch of fish that were really beat up looking and that’s when I figured the spawn was basically over.
Im wondering the exact same thing right now with the weird conditions we’re having. Our water temps up here just dropped from 67 degrees to 55 in 2 days. I’m very lost. 

When they stop going head over heels for Dior cologne scented baits 

I was bank fishing a local lake yesterday.  I have to imagine there were in the neighborhood of 1000+ bluegill around the banks. This is a little over 100 acre lake that attracts tons of fisherpeople. Anyway, dude (hs kid) walks up throwing a big 9” glide bait. I thought, “ok, this kid might be on to something. Maybe he knows a little more about this lake than I do?” He says “Hey man - when do you think the bass are going to spawn down here?” To which I replied “well bud, I think you’re late to the party. See all them bluegills down there?” “Nah, they haven’t spawned yet”. Ok, you’re probably right.

 

Saw him a few hrs later and he replied “man - there are no bass in this lake.” I then pulled out my phone and showed him a pic of my PB, which coincidentally was caught in that lake in June a few years back. 

1 hour ago, 10,000 lakes Bassin said:

Last year I caught a bunch of fish that were really beat up looking and that’s when I figured the spawn was basically over.

The physical condition of the fish is often a dead giveaway. Their tails and fins are beat up and they look noticeably skinny.

 

Water temperatures can also be an indicator but as you stated the weather has been varying lately so that may not be a good sign at this point.

 

I often experience a period of inactivity in terms of catching more sizable fish too. Where I fish, by mid June or earlier it’s pretty much all done.

As Gim said, when you start catching the fish that don’t have that big bulgy belly, the fins are ragged, and they just look ‘spent’ then you can be pretty confident those fish have spawned.  It doesn’t mean the spawn is over, just that those ones are done.  Another good indicator that it is ending is when you start catching smaller aggressive males where beds should be.  Those will be fry guarders.  They are usually the last ‘spawning’ fish that are up shallow before the bluegills start.  

 

Temp can be an indicator, plus minus 2 weeks I think.  60 is normally when the smallies are really close and 64-65 for the largemouth.  But you have to consider that the fish need an amount of time AT temperature for the eggs to finish developing and the hormonal triggers to kick in.  If the water temp is 45 and then overnight it warms to 70, they aren’t immediately going to rush to the bank and drop eggs.  If the water is 60 degrees for 8 weeks then they might just start but you can be sure that first warm day that the water hits 65 they are running up the bank.  They need a minimum time above a critical temperature first. If you think about the fish down south, they can be spawning over a 6 month period.  That’s because the water doesn’t go below the critical temp where eggs develop.  So they slowly develop and when the fish feels ready it moves up.  Contrast that with up north and the spawning season is much shorter.  Because the sun is moving north and getting more intense by the day, the water will get above and stay above that critical temp quickly which gets the fish ready.  Then they just need that trigger.  

 

In another hobby realm (lawn and grass growing), there is a metric called growing degree days (or growing degree units).  Basically it is the accumulation of energy from the sun that could have been used by plants to grow above a certain temp.  It is calculated based on the angle of the sun and the cloud cover for a given location (calculated down to a zip code).  For instance, grass doesn’t really grow if the soil temp is below 50- there isn’t enough energy to kick off the chemical reactions for photosynthesis.  then once the temp creeps above that things start to happen.  When the temp is over 60 then the chemical reactions are really kicked off.  When the temp hits 80 they actually slow down.  The accumulation of time at temperature is measured as the GDD or GDU and it is a great predictive measure of when things will happen.  The forsythia bloom at a certain point.  Crabgrass germinates at a certain point. Specific flowers emerge.  The more I pay attention to it for what it was designed for, the more I believe it can be applied to fish spawning.  There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that the stripers spawn when the forsythia blooms.  I know that when the forsythia starts, the bass around here are in the shallower side of prespawn- never fails.  I think that with a bit of work there is a correlation to the bass spawn. Looking at the GDD for Portland ME and comparing to here, there is about a 3 week lag, maybe 4.  I can tell you that the largemouth are done here on the smaller lakes.  I haven’t checked the bigger lakes but I bet they are about done.  So nominally in 3 weeks they will be done for you.  That would imply that they are getting close to getting towards the beds right now.  Looking at the pictures of your fish from the past week, I’d say they are still in the feeding up stage as they make their way to the beds, but they are close.  I’d love to know your water temp but I’d have to guess 60 give or take.  

 

https://www.greencastonline.com/growing-degree-days/home

2 minutes ago, casts_by_fly said:

As Gim said, when you start catching the fish that don’t have that big bulgy belly, the fins are ragged, and they just look ‘spent’ then you can be pretty confident those fish have spawned.  It doesn’t mean the spawn is over, just that those ones are done.  Another good indicator that it is ending is when you start catching smaller aggressive males where beds should be.  Those will be fry guarders.  They are usually the last ‘spawning’ fish that are up shallow before the bluegills start.  

 

Temp can be an indicator, plus minus 2 weeks I think.  60 is normally when the smallies are really close and 64-65 for the largemouth.  But you have to consider that the fish need an amount of time AT temperature for the eggs to finish developing and the hormonal triggers to kick in.  If the water temp is 45 and then overnight it warms to 70, they aren’t immediately going to rush to the bank and drop eggs.  If the water is 60 degrees for 8 weeks then they might just start but you can be sure that first warm day that the water hits 65 they are running up the bank.  They need a minimum time above a critical temperature first. If you think about the fish down south, they can be spawning over a 6 month period.  That’s because the water doesn’t go below the critical temp where eggs develop.  So they slowly develop and when the fish feels ready it moves up.  Contrast that with up north and the spawning season is much shorter.  Because the sun is moving north and getting more intense by the day, the water will get above and stay above that critical temp quickly which gets the fish ready.  Then they just need that trigger.  

 

In another hobby realm (lawn and grass growing), there is a metric called growing degree days (or growing degree units).  Basically it is the accumulation of energy from the sun that could have been used by plants to grow above a certain temp.  It is calculated based on the angle of the sun and the cloud cover for a given location (calculated down to a zip code).  For instance, grass doesn’t really grow if the soil temp is below 50- there isn’t enough energy to kick off the chemical reactions for photosynthesis.  then once the temp creeps above that things start to happen.  When the temp is over 60 then the chemical reactions are really kicked off.  When the temp hits 80 they actually slow down.  The accumulation of time at temperature is measured as the GDD or GDU and it is a great predictive measure of when things will happen.  The forsythia bloom at a certain point.  Crabgrass germinates at a certain point. Specific flowers emerge.  The more I pay attention to it for what it was designed for, the more I believe it can be applied to fish spawning.  There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that the stripers spawn when the forsythia blooms.  I know that when the forsythia starts, the bass around here are in the shallower side of prespawn- never fails.  I think that with a bit of work there is a correlation to the bass spawn. Looking at the GDD for Portland ME and comparing to here, there is about a 3 week lag, maybe 4.  I can tell you that the largemouth are done here on the smaller lakes.  I haven’t checked the bigger lakes but I bet they are about done.  So nominally in 3 weeks they will be done for you.  That would imply that they are getting close to getting towards the beds right now.  Looking at the pictures of your fish from the past week, I’d say they are still in the feeding up stage as they make their way to the beds, but they are close.  I’d love to know your water temp but I’d have to guess 60 give or take.  

 

https://www.greencastonline.com/growing-degree-days/home

That’s some awesome info. Thank you! 

Dunno if they really stop or start more than on an individual case by case fluid basis.  They're not robots they're animals.  😏

 

When they feel like making babies they do and sometimes they do it many times and many places with many fish and some fish never spawn and some fish spawn once or twice in the spring and call it a day - I think most big fish spawn as often as they can and that is much more often that we had previously believed.

 

Basically a fish that is post spawn is also...pre spawn....again?  And will soon be spawning and then be post spawn and then they will be pre spawn.... etc.

 

Fish by fish thing.

 

If you don't wear polarized glasses you will never see a bass on a bed - in clearer water they generally spawn in up to 'your water clarity x 2-3.

 

If you can see 6 feet down they could be spawning as deep as 20 feet down etc.

 

Basically they are done spawning when they lay their eggs and they are making more eggs as soon as they lay their eggs.

 

Maybe up north the bass all drop eggs and then swim around until the winter but I sincerely doubt it.

 

Here you might catch a fish off a bed in 1 foot of muddy water near the marina and then catch a pre-spawn fish up the lake on a point and then catch a skinny post spawner in some vegetation all in the same day.

 

You'd get a different answer from each of those fish huh?

I'm still catching fat bass around here... so I figure it's still in the process. Bluegill are spawning... prime fishing area for a large bass swimming through for a snack.

Makes sense — sounds like I should keep an eye out for beat-up bass and those post-spawn cruisers near bluegill beds when they show up. Up north, it’s tricky with the temps all over the place. I guess it’s less about exact dates and more about reading what the fish are telling you.

@Swamp Girl Here in Iowa water temp is like a roller coaster (along with spawning activity) with the trend being upward as spring progresses.  Bass spawn from late April to early June and not all at the same time so fishing deeper water near spawning areas is never a bad thing.  

BTW, when you read a water temp on a depth finder that is surface temp.  Also, if you have no temp gauge ag websites usually post soil temps in your area and that can help you guesstimate water temps.

@casts_by_fly: Wow! What an answer!!! I marked it as a solution. Thanks to the rest of you too. Here are our high temps for the next four days: 54, 56, 51, 48, 51, 58. And here are our lows: 42, 42, 42, 43, 44, 46. And it'll be cloudy too. If they were about to spawn, I think Mother Nature has brake checked them. 

 

How do you know so much, @casts_by_fly?

 

I'm not launching again until Wednesday evening because the north wind won't stop blowing. On Wednesday at 4:00 p.m., the wind shifts from the South. That should help, but with bass, I never know. I know the ponds and bogs I fish perhaps better than any other living angler. Paddling alone in a quiet canoe is so different than roaring across the water. I'm forced to observe, but observation is also in my nature.

 

Even then, with all the data that I've uploaded, which gives me really good hunches, I still don't know when I launch where the bass are and how they'll react. They are constantly in flux and I'm forever paddling around, hoping to stumble on them. I wish I could tell you how many evenings I stumbled upon feeding bass at one particular spot and the every next morning, perhaps eight hours later, they're gone. 

I do not find that bass being ragged is a sign that the spawn is over at all.  YMMV

 

Usually has more to do with water quality etc in my experience 

 

Also bluegill spawning does not mean it's over at all here.  YMMV 

 

A bass being 'fat' doesn't mean it hasn't spawned many times already.  Or that it isn't currently spawning even!

 

Not all post spawn fish look ragged and not all ragged fish have been spawning.  There's lots of fun diseases fish can get etc.

 

Sometimes skinny fish that are ragged are full of eggs and have diseases and can't hunt well - they're still pre-spawn.

 

Sometimes fat healthy clean looking fish just got done laying her eggs and didn't get roughed up and has been loading her face with perch all day.  She's still post spawn.

 

Just sharing those tidbits to offer another perspective.

 

Again might be different up north - don't know.

13 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

Again might be different up north - don't know.

 

If Pat, the Bass Professor Part II doesn't know, and if Old Swampy, who lives up north doesn't know, I figure no one knows. Here's the one bass with a bloody fin that I've caught. That's one bloody fin out of nearly 300 bass:

 

 

With our cool temps and their still chunky bodies, I don't think they've spawned yet. Plus, other than the big girls I've caught at the river outlet, all my big girls have been caught in deep water adjacent to shallow water. I hooked and lost a big girl in just such deep water and I'll be fishing that deep water again tomorrow evening. 

9 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

Dunno if they really stop or start more than on an individual case by case fluid basis.  They're not robots they're animals.  😏

 

When they feel like making babies they do and sometimes they do it many times and many places with many fish and some fish never spawn and some fish spawn once or twice in the spring and call it a day - I think most big fish spawn as often as they can and that is much more often that we had previously believed.

 

Basically a fish that is post spawn is also...pre spawn....again?  And will soon be spawning and then be post spawn and then they will be pre spawn.... etc.

 

Fish by fish thing.

 

If you don't wear polarized glasses you will never see a bass on a bed - in clearer water they generally spawn in up to 'your water clarity x 2-3.

 

If you can see 6 feet down they could be spawning as deep as 20 feet down etc.

 

Basically they are done spawning when they lay their eggs and they are making more eggs as soon as they lay their eggs.

 

Maybe up north the bass all drop eggs and then swim around until the winter but I sincerely doubt it.

 

Here you might catch a fish off a bed in 1 foot of muddy water near the marina and then catch a pre-spawn fish up the lake on a point and then catch a skinny post spawner in some vegetation all in the same day.

 

You'd get a different answer from each of those fish huh?

 

That's a good point about individuals vs populations.  Any individual will do its own thing.  Populations are the 'average' of all the individuals though and that's where trends emerge.  But it takes time and energy and food for a female to make eggs.  Once they drop them (assuming they drop them all which may or may not happen all the time) they can't just magic up another cluster of roe.  Some individuals might hold on and not spawn with the group so you might see her a month later (or earlier).  I think certainly down south the range is broader because the temps are milder.  Plenty on here and pro's during events have said that you'll find spawning florida bass from December to April.  But it's going to be a distribution curve with a broad peak.  Up north (I can speak to NJ and PA) things happen more suddenly.  Within a 2-3 week window you can cruise around and see no beds to seeing fry guarders with tons of empty beds.  This year I was on my 'home' lake on May 4th.  Big natural lake, clear water, I know it well.  68-69 degree water, but it was low 60s just the weekend before.  Calendar days wise, that's early in the year to be that warm (I've fished it April 29th with 50 degree water before).  That's also early for the largemouth spawn around here (usually mid may).  I saw one male starting to make a bed and I cruised the shoreline looking pretty hard.  The female that I did catch was busting at the seams.  They were close, but not quite there.  Fast forward to Wednesday the 14th and they were done.  Beds were empty already.  Smaller males around shallow guarding, but not a bigger female in sight.  Bluegill had gotten busy making beds, though not as many as there will be right now a week later (it will look like a honeycomb in the shallows on that lake right now).  If we weren't going on vacation tomorrow I would be on that lake tomorrow evening as there is usually a 1 week lull after the fish spawn (last week) and before the bluegills kick off.  Then the bass are chomping on gills for the next 3 weeks solid.  Last year I had 20-25 bass evenings fishibg bluegill beds.

 

8 hours ago, Bazoo said:

I'm still catching fat bass around here... so I figure it's still in the process. Bluegill are spawning... prime fishing area for a large bass swimming through for a snack.

 

I think you answered your own comment.  They are fat because they are snacking on every gill that comes along.  You might still have some spawning, but that post spawn binge on the bluegill spawn refills their bellies.

 

44 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

@casts_by_fly: Wow! What an answer!!! I marked it as a solution. Thanks to the rest of you too. Here are our high temps for the next four days: 54, 56, 51, 48, 51, 58. And here are our lows: 42, 42, 42, 43, 44, 46. And it'll be cloudy too. If they were about to spawn, I think Mother Nature has brake checked them. 

 

How do you know so much, @casts_by_fly?

 

I'm not launching again until Wednesday evening because the north wind won't stop blowing. On Wednesday at 4:00 p.m., the wind shifts from the South. That should help, but with bass, I never know. I know the ponds and bogs I fish perhaps better than any other living angler. Paddling alone in a quiet canoe is so different than roaring across the water. I'm forced to observe, but observation is also in my nature.

 

Even then, with all the data that I've uploaded, which gives me really good hunches, I still don't know when I launch where the bass are and how they'll react. They are constantly in flux and I'm forever paddling around, hoping to stumble on them. I wish I could tell you how many evenings I stumbled upon feeding bass at one particular spot and the every next morning, perhaps eight hours later, they're gone. 

 

I think you're still a couple week away.  Your bass look like they are 'about' ready and if you had a week of 75 and sunny then that would pull them up quickly.  In the meantime, they are just going to hang back a little and feed up.  Their metabolisms are increasing with the water temp rises and they are hungry.  Go catch em.

 

Many things determine spawn cycle. Personally I think you need to consider how much light the bass in your area have had. From what I’ve experienced and really tried to pay attention to moon phase and light availability are what triggers spawn water temperatures are just relative to those needs.Duration of available light is as or more important than actual water temp. Ie dirty water will warm faster but receives less light so just because water temps warm that doesn’t mean bass will spawn. So consider how much and for how long a particular area has received light. Then think about the fish you catch and how you are catching them. Do they act like they are related to beds, guarding beds, aggressively feeding, overly fat, thin and beat up, are predators of bass beds in the area, etc. 

@casts_by_fly - for what it's worth, I have seen exactly what you're talking about. Happen back and forth all summer long around here. 

 

Fat bass show up. Fat bass leave.  Fry gaurders are hanging out with fry.  Sunfish move in on the beds and spawn.  Sunfish guard beds and fry.  Fat bass show up.  Sunfish leave.  Fat bass make beds.

 

They almost get to where they are tagging each other out on new and full moons - not even exaggerating.

 

Bass like to spawn where deep meets shallow Katy.  You may just have extremely good water and your fish don't show much wear and tear ever.  

 

We think of spawning as a visible and shallow thing and that is not always the case.

 

I have actually been told by local biologists at my lakes that ***the bass that spawn shallow*** (not all do!!!!) around here tend to occupy the shallows in waves and they have observed 3 major waves at the end of the winter/early spring, when spring really bursts and beginning of the summer but often times as temps come back down the whole thing happens again and fall is more or less spring again for LMB around here.

 

And you have deep spawners that follow no rules all year round 100% and there are many more of them than we realized and 'deep' could be a place where it drops from 3 FOW to 7 fairly quickly and they spawn in 7.  It's not like the abyss necessarily.

1 minute ago, Pat Brown said:

@casts_by_fly - for what it's worth, I have seen exactly what you're talking about. Happen back and forth all summer long around here. 

 

Fat bass show up. Fat bass leave.  Fry gaurders are hanging out with fry.  Sunfish move in on the beds and spawn.  Sunfish guard beds and fry.  Fat bass show up.  Sunfish leave.  Fat bass make beds.

 

They almost get to where they are tagging each other out on new and full moons - not even exaggerating.

 

Bass like to spawn where deep meets shallow Katy.  You may just have extremely good water and your fish don't show much wear and tear ever.  

 

We think of spawning as a visible and shallow thing and that is not always the case.

 

I have actually been told by local biologists at my lakes that bass around here tend to occupy the shallows in waves and they have observed 3 major waves at the end of the winter, early spring and beginning of the summer but often times as temps come back down the whole thing happens again and fall is more or less spring again for LMB around here.

 

Interesting.  Up here, I've never seen a bass on the beds once they have left the beds the first time.  My dad keeps a bunch of bass through the year (from 12-20") and has never had one with eggs either.  I bet with the added early year direct sunlight and warmer winters that allows your fish to develop eggs earlier and then get a second round in the fall.  

... by the cigarette smoke rising from the water

9 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

We think of spawning as a visible and shallow thing and that is not always the case.

 

To be frank, I kind of feel like an idiot never having seen a single spawning bed in Maine. @jbmaine, who lives south of me, wrote about once seeing hundreds in his favorite smallmouth lake before the McMansion builders came. I like to think that I'm not failing, but that the bass are simply spawning deeper than I can see.

 

15 minutes ago, DinkDonkey30 said:

Do they act like they are related to beds, guarding beds, aggressively feeding, overly fat, thin and beat up, are predators of bass beds in the area, etc.

 

You've seen the bass I catch. They just look thick to me. Not bulging with eggs, but chunky and well fed. The ones that were aggressively feeding were the ones under that line of bushes where I caught eight straight. Here:

 

 

The water I fish has a lot of cranes, eagles, and ospreys and the water is clear, so the birds can see the bass and the bass must hunker. One of their favorite places to hunker is bushy shorelines. They park under the branches. Since the bushes above abut shallow water, it's my guess that the bass I caught were biding their time under the bushes until the water warms a bit more. 

 

@DinkDonkey30, I do think that there's more to the spawn than water temps and that your focus on the length of days is accurate.

@Swamp Girl- if I remember correctly, your water is pretty tannic and you've got sandy bottoms?  That would make it a bit tougher to see beds.  Being low to the water doesn't help you.  Plus its always cloudy and low light in your pictures so that doesn't help to see them.

 

in 3 weeks on a bright sunny day when the sun is high in the sky and after you're done fishing cruise over to the shallows and just paddle around in 1-3' of water with some polarized glasses.  If you have a sandy bottom, the beds should stick out a bit in the darker water. You might or might not see fish on them, but at least you'll find where they are.  I'm sure they aren't far from where your fish are eating right now.