Just curious if you guys pick a starting location (ie secondary points in spawning coves) and have a specific one that you pick out and start from, or do you have a general layout (secondary points in spawning coves) but idle around for awhile in and around that cove to see if there are bait balls there?  And if you don’t see bait, then head to another cove?  Just curious. I’m not asking where specifically you start from. Just….do you look for bait balls in the area first or don’t care? Thanks 

It depends is the best answer I can give - there’s times when you want to be doing more of one or the other on every lake etc.

Also not all fish on a lake are prespawn/spawn/post spawn at the same time.

In the spring especially areas on the main lake - I might just check the points and move on - but up a muddy creek arm or on a shallow flat - I might slow down and pick apart for fish that are active around their beds in that warmer water.

And then there’s the conditions leading up to the day I go out which can change everything in a heartbeat.

I wouldn’t say I pick a starting location - I’d say I show up and fish the conditions and start with the closest points/flats/ledges etc and start checking things out - I try not to have a plan or make too many assumptions ever - learned that for the most part - whatever I figure out one day is gone the next more often than not.

The major exception being when fish start to spawn and then you can typically find them up shallow around cover until they stop.

Some of those fish around their beds are Prespawn and some are spawning and some are post spawn.

Same is true for fish on points and ledges and in ditches etc etc.

I’d just try to figure out what the fish are doing that you can capitalize on given the conditions you face on the day you go out.

Where I fish, they will spawn on main make shorelines and all the way to the backs of coves, and anywhere in between. If I want to fish beds, and the water is clear enough, I can simply look for fish/beds doing what they do this time of year. If the water doesn't allow me to see them or possible beds, I could go to areas I have done well at in the past, or simply not bother with bed fish. If I can't see them, but I am getting quick short strikes at the right depth range, it lets me know that they might be spawning.

Where I fish, often, beds are at the base of a big rock or bushes, on the deeper side, or right in the middle of them.

If I want to catch bed fish, a 3" Roboworm Alive Shad in Hologram Shad color fished on a dropshot 4" to 5" above the weight yields as good of results as anything I have ever used. I can see it sometimes, but even if I can't. . . . . They can see it. It triggers strikes. It has a high hookup rate because it's so small that there's a good chance they will hook themselves when they strike it.

If there are bed fish, there are usually others getting ready or recovering, and I am happy to fish for them. I may spend a relatively small amount of time each season just to see if I can, or to show someone else how to do it. After that, there's usually plenty of other techniques that are just as productive if not more so.

Ok…I just mean I. Prespawn conditions(48-58 degree water temp) do you care about bait fish being nearby or does that not matter? If you find one cove with multiple bait balls, and one cove doesn’t… are you much more likely to fish the one with bait present? Or do bass not care about bait as much when traveling to spawn area and care more about location?

Are you chasing fish that are chasing bait (with FFS) or are you fishing structure and cover without it?

If you’re chasing fish, then find the bait. Start at the mouth of a creek and start scanning up it until you find it. Find the cover that bass will hold on nearby and start fishing. Rinse and repeat for other arms.

If you’re searching the good ol’ fashioned way, then figure out where they are going to spawn, where they are going to winter, and pick a line between those places. I pick my start based on the weather and temps. If the main lake surface temps are still in the upper 40’s and low 50’s then the fish probably aren’t that far along so I’ll start on the main lake side and and go up the line shallower. If the main lake is upper 50’s or even 60’s then I’m starting at the shallow end of that line, looking for beds, and then working my way back out.

Does anyone read?

bait balls or does it matter?! That’s the question I am asking

I look for the warmest water temp I can find.

That’s where the cycle of life will be furthest along, which brings in bait/minnows, and usually also brings in predators. Make long casts and don’t retrieve too fast. Fish can be lethargic in early spring.

18 minutes ago, clemsondds said:

Does anyone read?

bait balls or does it matter?! That’s the question I am asking

How to win friends and influence people.

Don’t Criticize, Don’t Condemn, and Don’t Complain.

Perfect.

A-Jay

I haven’t been on this site in probably a year just because of the dumb answers you get. You ask one specific thing and you get everybody’s opinion on everything else but the actual question you asked.. I’m not trying to win any friends, I was just trying to ask a simple question. But thank you though for the advice lol. I’m not trying to be a jerk, but it’s just frustrating.

Too many variables for a simple answer. Depends on the bait, but in my lake over the past 3 weeks (40-55°), the bait balls vary dramatically every few hours. When I find large, tight balls of threadfin or gizzards, there have been LMB around. But more often than not, those bait balls have been looser lately... and moving a lot. But sometimes even when I'm in the middle of huge gizzard school with bass gorging, I can't get a bite. I could see the bass chasing down shad all around me two days ago. (I'malways amazed at how fast bass are.) I was snagging shad every 3rd cast with a crankbait. Not one bite, though. But, I'm generally not finding a lot of active bass directly relating to obvious bait concentrations. They are relating to cover and structure more than they have since November. I need to start over every day and figure out if the active fish are on points, drops, wood, or most often, grass.

I'm ignoring the bait on my graphs right now.

13 minutes ago, clemsondds said:

I haven’t been on this site in probably a year just because of the dumb answers you get. You ask one specific thing and you get everybody’s opinion on everything else but the actual question you asked.. I’m not trying to win any friends, I was just trying to ask a simple question. But thank you though for the advice lol. I’m not trying to be a jerk, but it’s just frustrating.

I can understand your frustration. What sets the tone of your post is the title. I'm wondering if the responses would have been more focused if you had titled the "Should I look for bait balls during pre-spawn?" or similar? Maybe people are already mentally creating a response to the title before they finish reading the post?

As to your question, I always care about the presence of bait fish. In the spring I still make the routes from winter spots to spawning coves my priority and I look for the bait in those areas. If I saw the wind pushing bait fish against a bank, I would make a beeline. But my priority remains the routes they travel to spawn.

1 hour ago, clemsondds said:

Does anyone read?

bait balls or does it matter?! That’s the question I am asking

If you’re chasing fish that are chasing bait balls then it matters. If you’re not specifically targeting those fish then it matters less.

37 minutes ago, clemsondds said:

I haven’t been on this site in probably a year just because of the dumb answers you get. You ask one specific thing and you get everybody’s opinion.

In your first two posts I see 6 different questions, not to mention the title. So you’re going to get a whole bunch of different answers.

Sometimes you want bait balls around - sometimes it doesn’t matter.

It changes day to day and depending on the section of the lake you’re in.

People offering you nuanced advice are people who aren’t trying to get your money or sell you a bait and you’d do well to listen. Nobody here is just typing to hear themselves talk.

My help is voluntary and I enjoy helping others catch fish. It’s just not always black and white the way we want it to be.

I’ve never found bait balls to make any difference. The ones I see aren’t close to where I am fishing. I choose my starting spot based on history. I have 28 years of systematic recording my trips on excell. I look at them checking what I consider to be pertinent information and choose a starting spot and bait.

9 hours ago, clemsondds said:

Just curious if you guys pick a starting location (ie secondary points in spawning coves) and have a specific one that you pick out and start from, or do you have a general layout (secondary points in spawning coves) but idle around for awhile in and around that cove to see if there are bait balls there?  And if you don’t see bait, then head to another cove?  Just curious. I’m not asking where specifically you start from. Just….do you look for bait balls in the area first or don’t care? Thanks 

6 hours ago, clemsondds said:

Does anyone read?

bait balls or does it matter?! That’s the question I am asking

TL/DR version: Seeing bait balls is a bonus, but a lack of them is not a deterrent for me, much less a requirement regardless of the time of year.

===========================

The semi-verbose version: The forage in my home lake IS absolutely primarily threadfin shad based more than anything, and I don't think anything else is even close. With that said:

It's good to see bait balls in an area regardless of the time of year, but if I don't see them initially, I'm not likely to spend time looking for the for a couple of reasons:

1) it doesn't mean there aren't active fish there

2) it may spook them if I am zig-zagging around over the top of them

If bait balls are there, great, but it doesn't mean fish are or aren't there or nearby, especially if I am graphing or seeing fish. If I haven't seen them, it only verifies that I haven't seen them.

If bait balls and fish are there underneath and within them, that's generally even better. Generally. . . .

If I graph fish, but no bait balls, I'll still fish there and vice versa.

If I don't see fish or bait, I might still try an area, but if I get no action, I'll move on sooner than later.

Fish are like people I reckon. There's some that probably don't care to eat shad, or all shad all the time. We have crayfish, prawns, silverside minnows, sculpin, carp, frogs, snakes, vermin, logperch, and all sorts of juvenile (and grown) gamefish (catfish, bluegill, crappie, sunfish, trout, and . . . . other bass) that at least some bass are happy to consume.

13 hours ago, clemsondds said:

You ask one specific thing and you get everybody’s opinion on everything else but the actual question you asked

I've seen this a lot too.

But an outburst is not the correct reaction.

12 hours ago, Jig Man said:

I’ve never found bait balls to make any difference. The ones I see aren’t close to where I am fishing. I choose my starting spot based on history. I have 28 years of systematic recording my trips on excell.

I'm with JigMan, but with a twist. JigMan records his own data. I don't have to do that because I have state government agencies who do that for me and paid to do it to.

I'll try and dial it down and dial it in for our frustrated OP who just joined an exclusive club on that one! We have arrived at a mutual understanding. I'm good with it.

About bass and the spawn. I am no expert so what I am about to say is merely my interpretation of what I have "learned" over the years.

The spawn is primarily for the bass involved not about food, its about real estate. And we all know in real estate it is all about the location, location, location. And that's it in a nutshell right there.

Years ago I was in contact with a couple of the state of Florida biologists in the fisheries dept. who help the bass with their ongoing science.

Take West Lake Tohopekaliga in Kissimmee, Florida as a great example. This lake is commonly referred to by a shortened name rather than its longer Seminole Indian name and is most often referred to as Lake Toho. Seminole chiefs used to live on the islands in middle of this lake before being driven South into Everglades by U.S. Army in 1830's.

Today that lake is world famous and fishermen still want to go there from all over the country. The reason behind this type of an earned reputation goes right straight to state of Florida biologists and their bulldozers who reshaped that lake's bottom after draining it and cleaning 10 feet of rotting plant muck off the bottom of the entire lake. Once cleaned back to pure white Florida sandy bottom is when biologists went to work.

They changed the shape of the lake bottom for one reason and one reason only- the bass spawn. I was told by a Florida biologist that what they did was more than triple the vast shallow expanses of sandy bottom that Nature had provided for bass to spawn on. By tripling the spawn areas, the bass exploded in that lake to legendary proportions still echoing down to this day I read on this forum some guy is going to take a trip to Lake Toho even though he's nearly a decade too late to enjoy it at peak level.

And that is the point of this comment. Its real estate and location, location, location.

So I approach it a little bit differently. Since I am retired now and have boat and will travel, as I travel to new places I am always remembering what the biologists did to Toho, and as I travel from place to place I am looking for what they created with bulldozers.

Some lakes have very little in the way of shallow expanses with sandy bottom. So it is hit or miss around the shoreline. But some lakes have large vast expanses of sandy shallows perfect for bedding bass. So I take note of these specific lakes, rivers, etc.

And it is those places I would return to for spawn. I did that this past weekend with my 12 year old son. We headed to just such a lake with clean, clear water and gorgeous white sandy beaches around entire lake, and in the lake vast expanses of shallow sandy bottom. That is location, location, location and prime real estate right there.

You can go to just about any lake to find spawning bass. But if we humans can plan anything then it should be around the criteria the bass use for what they do.

I'm with JigMan and biologists that bass don't choose their spawn locations based on food sources or roaming bait balls. They seek a perfect location to spawn so we humans should also be thinking in terms of location, location, location.

In West Lake Toho biologists were not concerned about food sources because bass know how to take care of themselves and they do. The only thing biologists were concerned with was in creating massive spawn bedding real estate and nothing else.

So if we target what those biologists build with their bulldozers, whether manmade or natural, the fish will be there at their right time.

I can target any lake for spawning bass, but if I am targeting spawning bass then I am targeting prime real estate first. Its all about location, location, location.

And if I don't have any in mind all I have to do is call up a fisheries biologist and request his list of prime real estate. Those guys know far more places including places they are working on that we don't know about yet. I'd like to ask them when will they redo Lake Toho?

On 3/8/2026 at 5:57 PM, clemsondds said:

I haven’t been on this site in probably a year just because of the dumb answers you get.

On 3/8/2026 at 3:49 PM, Big Hands said:

If I want to catch bed fish, a 3" Roboworm Alive Shad in Hologram Shad color fished on a dropshot 4" to 5" above the weight yields as good of results as anything I have ever used.

They dont get enough credit. The alive shads are one of the best DS baits you can possibly get.

IMO the wind is really important during late winter into prespawn. Any structure or cover that is windblown is going to get my attention.

Within a few weeks of ice out, it’s easy. Wherever the warmer water is. After that it’s easy, too. Wherever it’s shallow 🤣