Saw several bass spawning around my dock today, something the book says they should have done 3 months ago. I’d guess the water temp is in the mid 80s right there, we are back in a creek arm that is always warmer than the main channel. You can see the bigger bass to the right of the lighter bottom area and two other ones rush in a few seconds later. If you’re wondering, I did throw a jointed glide/swim bait over there and it followed it and stared . Then I tried a plastic worm and it bolted away so I quit trying after two casts 😂

I also saw another bass on the left side of the dock that was bigger, maybe 3 lbs, that chased my worm a bit but wouldn’t eat it

I can't believe you didn't try a spinnerbait.

@Pat Brown believes that some bass spawn more than once and that bass don't all spawn at the same time. I agree with Pat that bass are individuals. I try to understand them and guess where they'll be and what they want, but in the end, they're mysteries to me.

Bass, just like deer, do not read our rule books. They act like they don't have calendars.

8 hours ago, king fisher said:

I can't believe you didn't try a spinnerbait.

It’s been working, didn’t wanna mess up my hot streak 😂

They spawned very late here and I've still be seeing fish on beds as recently as last weekend with water temps reaching 80. I'll catch one fish that looks like this that has obviously spawned recently if it wasn't actively spawning when I caught it.

Then one like this that is still thick and tail has no signs of wear at all like it hasn't spawned yet.

Then one like this that is long, lean, but looks completely healed up like it spawned over a month ago like they should l have, all from the same lake on the same day.

Yeah they spawn a lot of the year most places we just don’t always see it. Enjoy! Bass around their nests tend to be the bigger ones that we can catch. It’s not even a snagging fish off beds thing or anything remotely like that. It’s just the one thing that fires females up enough to bite artificials - thankfully they don’t do it once or all at once or we probably wouldn’t catch a lot of big female bass on artificial lures.

I rarely ever see any such activity so I always try to get a photo or video. I can count on half of one hand how many I’ve seen on a bed and caught. I can only recall 2ish

I think in the south, since water doesn’t truly get cold(40’s-50’s), it can be very staggered and unpredictable. I’ve saw southern dudes on YouTube saying things like “I still haven’t saw any bedded bass”. Here in the north, our fish have a considerably shorter window and as soon as it lines up, they go. I do feel a lot of bass bed in hidden and/or deeper areas than most think.

I’m always bummed when prespawn is winding down and it’s bed city. I usually switch to panfish then, as they’re in prespawn at that point. I can’t do bed fishing, just not my style. I saw a giant pumpkinseed on bed a couple weeks back and while I was truly curious how big it was; I left it be as there was no challenge presented.

16 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

I rarely ever see any such activity so I always try to get a photo or video. I can count on half of one hand how many I’ve seen on a bed and caught. I can only recall 2ish

I can top you, Russ, as I haven't even seen a spawning bed for half a century.

I can remember a few years back - I was at a lake and I got back into a small cove on the morning of July 4th. My partner and I got into a huge group of spawning fish full of 3 and 4 pound females. They were on beds everywhere in 80 degree water.

In Florida we can have two or three spawning periods. It starts in November and will go as late as early March depending on weather conditions.

It seems to me the bedded fish are more challenging to catch than a regular fish, but i haven’t tried much

I fish a lake that has a few canals and most of the largemouth spawn in the canals because the water is much warmer and it's warmer earlier in the season. We have a closed season and it opens on June 15.

A few years back, at the beginning of June, we had 3 or 4 days of really heavy rain and the water in the canals started to flow and got really muddy. The current was to fast to drop eggs. The largemouth got out and spread in the lake waiting for more favorable conditions. The right conditions took about 10 days to arrive so we had some largemouth that could'nt wait spawning in the lake and some that went back into the canals. The spawn was delayed for almost 3 weeks. And that's long for down north.