I was shocked Thursday when I caught a bass while trout/crappie fishing. Our lakes have been frozen over here in Southern IL with some serious snow fall a few weeks ago. Then a nice warm front that lasted about a week finally unfroze the lakes and melted all the snow. The result has been some high water. So my dad and me went to a local clear lake that has some awesome fishing below the spillway when waters high. Well the spillway was crazy with very high current and we didn't see a bight. So we went above the spillway and my dad hooked up with a trout with his bobber at only about 3 or 4ft. I was at the same depth and hooked up with a fish and was shocked when it was a LMB. My only guess was that it was up sunning itself. We actually took it and the trout home to clean and the LMB was to our shock full of eggs.

We have been catching bass all winter long in less than 15 fow.  The last time we went the surface temp was 36° and the fish were about 10' deep.

Eggs take several months to develop so a females are very eggy this time of year.

Bass love the warming days after winter breaks. If you get several sunny days in a row it is common to find them up in the 1-3 ft depths. The water was probably several degrees warmer then the rest of the lake so go take advantage of the days you have like that.

Northern or western side of the lake where the sun's rays were striking the shoreline?

Just curious.  

All winter here, I have been pulling them out of 10 ft. Been the magic depth for the last 3 months