Hi Folks!

Haven't posted in awhile I've been busy with school and finished nursing a shoulder injury. However, It's good to be back and I'm starting the year strong and catching some fat 3-4lb fish as the waters continue to heat up!

I'm curious though when you typically see the big females finally push onto beds AFTER the males are locked in on their spots. I've been bank fishing a pond about 2 times a week to really learn the Spring season because surprisingly its been my least fished time of year. Been watching the males creep up and get pushed back with a cold weather push over the last month. Just yesterday though the males finally locked into their beds because of consistent warm days, and the next two weeks are projected to be stable 70-80 degree days. I believe I see some females suspending about 25-50 yards from the bedding males but they are inactive and wont sniff a Big Swimbait down to a Ned Rig. Curious about both how to zero in on those staging pre-spawn females, but also how long after the males lock in do the females tend to join them dirt shallow. I know bed fishing can be an ethical question but I figured to try for the first time this season and I'm meticulous with my fish care protocol. Curious everyone's thoughts and happy to be back on the page.

Very sad to hear about two giants on the page, WRB and Catt, passing on. May they be slaying big ones on the other side.

Eli - Sacramento, CA

I wish I could tell you but I cannot see any bass in the shallows up here because of the ice cover. 🤓

Maybe in another month.

We are lucky dogs out here in the west and south hahaha, that ice better clear up soon for ya!

Here in Missouri when the water temp hits 55 or above. Depending on weather . It’s 72 today and gonna be 20 tomorrow. Love springtime in Missouri. Anytime from mid April to mid June

23 hours ago, bowhunter63 said:

Here in Missouri when the water temp hits 55 or above. Depending on weather . It’s 72 today and gonna be 20 tomorrow. Love springtime in Missouri. Anytime from mid April to mid June

Quit sending us your weather, darn it!

When do Females follow Males up to Bed?

Alcohol.

Lots of alcohol.

I usually dim the lights, light a couple of candles, few glasses of wine, and Barry White on the stereo

3 minutes ago, HawkeyeSmallie said:

When do Females follow Males up to Bed?

Alcohol.

Lots of alcohol.

Ha!!, you posted that up while I was writing mine

On 3/14/2026 at 10:41 AM, bowhunter63 said:

Here in Missouri when the water temp hits 55 or above. Depending on weather . It’s 72 today and gonna be 20 tomorrow. Love springtime in Missouri. Anytime from mid April to mid June

North missouri here and we are under a tornado watch and blizzard warning at the same time. Thats crazy.

33 minutes ago, scaleface said:

North missouri here and we are under a tornado watch and blizzard warning at the same time. Thats crazy.

We are under a tornado watch . Gotta love Missouri

46 minutes ago, herder said:

I usually dim the lights, light a couple of candles, few glasses of wine, and Barry White on the stereo

Yeah you really have to tread lightly.

One glass:

A few glasses:

1 hour ago, HawkeyeSmallie said:

When do Females follow Males up to Bed?

Alcohol.

Lots of alcohol.

Or a big bank account.

I cannot help with this. We are not permitted to make casts at bass we can see on beds.

Best bet in my experience is the 3 days before/after the full and new moons.

There isn’t really a set time when all of them do one thing but pretty much when you start to see / catch fish up shallow a lot - they’re already spawning somewhere on that body of water.

Also worth noting: perfectly paired off male and female bass guarding beds in a very susceptible manner is the exception not the rule and you actually don’t really get to actually see bass doing the pair thing very often during the spawn. Females drop eggs and leave and a lot of times they do that at night when you can’t see em.

Strong chance that wolfpack of females hovering nearby is a group that has already laid eggs and the males you see are now just guarding the eggs.

Also also worth noting - been doing this a long time and fishing a lot of spawns - contrary to popular belief - females almost always show up and clear the area they like to spawn long before males follow shad/shiners/sunfish out of deeper water. Those males being locked on only happens when there’s already eggs to protect.

5 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

There isn’t really a set time when all of them do one thing but pretty much when you start to see / catch fish up shallow a lot - they’re already spawning somewhere on that body of water.

Also worth noting: perfectly paired off male and female bass guarding beds in a very susceptible manner is the exception not the rule and you actually don’t really get to actually see bass doing the pair thing very often during the spawn. Females drop eggs and leave and a lot of times they do that at night when you can’t see em.

Strong chance that wolfpack of females hovering nearby is a group that has already laid eggs and the males you see are now just guarding the eggs.

Also also worth noting - been doing this a long time and fishing a lot of spawns - contrary to popular belief - females almost always show up and clear the area they like to spawn long before males follow shad/shiners/sunfish out of deeper water. Those males being locked on only happens when there’s already eggs to protect.

Interesting stuff here Pat and ideas I was also considering. The males "locked in" around the second week of march here this year, but truthfully I saw big females up shallow mid february, more so than I see them now. So it makes sense they come up before the males to scope things out. In fact my biggest fish was caught Feb 1st in about 3-4ft of water on a sunny Feb day.

We will see if I even decide to chunk a lure at a big one on a bed anyways, it does feel a tad unsportsman like. But its been great learning this time of year, I normally fish Summer-Winter, school always steals my life in Spring 😂

@RenzokukenFisher The males will take the bait off the bed and those uninterested females hovering 25 feet away might come investigate if the dude can’t stop the nuisance - wear polarized glasses and make note of where you need to cast and then get as far away as you can cast accurately and stay that distance away from the bed.

You don’t really even have to catch the male - just let him take the bait off the bed over and over again and usually mama will come see what’s shaking.

Not always though.

Really big baits like glide baits and big swimbaits and heavy jigs and big creature baits and crankbaits and frogs and buzzbaits can sometimes get them to hit off the bed.

Cast 30 - 40 feet past where you see them hovering and bring it through them at various speeds and depths and from different angles if possible (and different times of day!) don’t be afraid to go extremely fast and slow.

Honestly intentionally sight fishing females is incredibly hard and I respect anyone who has success doing it. It’s just as hard as catching a big female bass any other time to be honest - I would know.

Good luck.

As Pat said, the females, here, will move up and mark a spot for a bed by clearing it a little. The males will move in and clean things up. If you catch a male prior to the actual spawn, release it in the same area. Females generally have their mate chosen by then. You want to, at least, give the guy a chance at getting to the finish line.

Here in Missouri, I have caught several spawners so far. They were all at a public pond with a stone bank surrounding it. The day I caught them, it was in the low 40s with wind. I think the stone wall was still giving off heat from the days before because they would come back to their beds within a few minutes when scared. I caught a 3.4, a 1.5 male, hooked a 4+ female on a small jig, and a prespawn 3lber dragging the jig. There were also around 3 or 4 5lbers that weren't locked on yet. Since then, nothing. I'll probably have to wait about a week since a cold front just came through.

When he turns the lights out?

When do Females follow Males up to Bed?

After cleaning up the kitchen 😄

(It's a joke, people. Please don't tell my GF)

In nearly 40 years of fishing, I’ve seen about 6 bass on a bed so I have no idea

I saw one dinky male (12” maybe) on a a bed yesterday. I was flipping a craw on his bed and he was not interested. Saw out of the corner of my eye big mama. She was a little better - say 15-16” and was fat. Real fat. She really wasn’t interested in the bed though. One flip with the craw and the male ran. Didn’t see him again.

11 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

In nearly 40 years of fishing, I’ve seen about 6 bass on a bed so I have no idea

I used to see beds in Ohio and Ontario, but not one in Maine.

1 hour ago, Smirak said:

I saw one dinky male (12” maybe) on a a bed yesterday. I was flipping a craw on his bed and he was not interested. Saw out of the corner of my eye big mama. She was a little better - say 15-16” and was fat. Real fat. She really wasn’t interested in the bed though. One flip with the craw and the male ran. Didn’t see him again.

Is your Latin name “coitus interruptus?”

44 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Is your Latin name “coitus interruptus?”

It is. Latin’s a lost language though so the English version rhymes with rock clock.

is it possible to see the actual eggs that the male are guarding? I have come upon males locked on beds. However, I’ve never seen fry balls or anything that looked like eggs.

Seems like whenever I do fish a lake with spawning activity it’s either the very early part or the tail end of spawning.