I would now like to hear from Fish Chris, Mattlures, Randall, fourbizzle, Matt Fly, George Welcome, Raul, flechro, Alspter, Aint Texan & many others.

Good morning to all.

We will have some bedding bass starting on the power plant lakes in Dec.   Science can only support the temperature on these impoundments, currently, days aren't long enough to use the photoperiod as the justified trigger.

I like to remember that ponds, rivers, creeks, power plants, old deep gravel pits, natural lakes, man made lakes will all have a few certain factors that won't be text book spawning conditions.  So bass adapt to their conditions all over the states.

Great points made by Catt, Rolo, and LBH.

Rolo mentioned that a bass metabolism isn't stressed due to changing conditions, and that is so true.   The fish that is stressed by unfavorable conditions are shad during winter and other small baitfish.

Winter and unfavorable conditions that arises due to brutal cold and cloud cover stress shadout.   Cloud cover prevents the warm rays from penatrating and warming the waters.   Shad will venture to the shallows on long periods of warming trends.     They are seeking plankton blooms that occurs on  warm days.    One must also factor in cloud cover on day after warming trends, as long as no cold front has pushed through, the clouds on some days traps heat in and cloudy days  can make for some good shallow fishing.        Its not always text book!

          One must realize in your region what bass feed on in the winter as there primary diet.   There is nothing in the outdoors that can't be found if you know there feeding habits.     Patience in the winter is key.    A bass will no longer have to feed like they once did because as mentioned, their metabolism has slowed down.    A bass can eat a 5 inch gizzard shad and not have to eat for 3-4 days, and again, its dictated on the bass metabolism as to how fast they diegest their food.

       

    One is to seek warmer waters, areas that are void of good bassing activties in the summer may now be a hot bed for action.     The "dead" water  or unproductive areas.     After brutal cold fronts, i like deep water adjacent/next to muddy bottoms on shallow flats on norther western banks.    Mud asorbs heat rather easily and holds the heat better than most bottoms.     Those protected banks we speak of in Texas are important, we get some brutal winds coming from the panhandle.

I can say from Cali experience in Socal, that protected banks aren't as important because they don't have the brutal cold fronts coming in very often, thus no factor.

So take in the regions you live in and the winter conditions that exist on your waters.

Does a cold front in Florida drop temps down enough to threaten small baitfish?  

I think slow rolling an 1 oz spinner bait on bottom in prespawn/spawing waters in deeper water that is hard to see a bed is very key on finding the bigger females, and bigger females will spawn before text book conditions have arrived on most lakes.    Big blades stirs the bottom up and will aggrivate a big bass in a heartbeat.  key is to keep that bait skirting along the bottom, don't let it ride off bottom.

When the family needed to support our food bill in the 60's when only one income was the standard, I got to clean lots of fish, and when my dad cleaned fish, bass too, I got a little science from my DAD  and got to see first hand what a fish eats.   Cleaning fish and going CSI can tell you alot.    

My dad flipped me a bass and said, " bet you this one has been eating crawdads."    I was amazed to see he was spot on all the time.      The bass had a reddish discolored mouth.     Cleaning some river cats, most had skinned up noses, my dad said they are nosing rocks over in shallow rapids and feed on helgrimites.

       Reading the water, the fish, and knowing the bait can keep you on fish year around.      You can read all the years of experience shared on this forum, but getting on the water and applying it will eventually tie it all together.

I'm firm believer, as shad move to shallower water for warmth and planktons, so do bass.     I think big jigs and slow rolled spinner baits are the ticket.      Big bass love Crawdads, crawdads   are important, they are high in protien and will provide the extra nourishment to finish developing those eggs.  

Wildlife in general adapt to the conditions, and every year conditions may vary to some degree.     You know the big buck you see in the early fall before hunting season opens.   Seems that once shots ring out, they know to start moving at night or nocturnal.     One year, the accorn crop dropped earlly and deer are feeding on acorns and not corn feeders, and when the acorns are gone, the feeders seem to be the ticket.    Know what is on the menu.    

Prime example of bass spawing in one area one year and not the next is eveident on some of Texas drought stricken lakes.      Amistad  as example was 50 to 60 feet low after 10 years of no rain.    Bass will adjust every year if need be to fnd suitable spawing waters.  

The giant females know that past season brings unwanted pressures to their spawing rituals, some simply stay deeper and don't go to the banks.  

There are muliple schools that reside in shallows year around and deeper fish.    Each moves according to their comfort levels.     The bass I track normally are the deeper fish.     My best strengths are in open deep water, as Catt mentioned, when that bite goes dorminant, its a good sign that the shad have started to seek some warmer water also.      

    Late Dec, Jan on Lake Fork, a simple tool to use is to go out on main lake where there is 100 boats crappie fishing.      Jan 1. shad may be 32ft deep, and on Jan 3, they maybe 28ft.     One simple pass by the crappie boats will give you the depth for deep water to look for bass.

     When the crappie boats disappear, the shad are on the move and so are the bass and crappie.   They are all seeking warmer water for reasons we know as prespawn.    

Stay on the bait, they'll tell you when and where and when to start searching other areas.

This is the time of the year to catch a Personal Best and they fellows have given you prime areas to search.    

     I keep going back to KVD.    You dont see him use plastics if he don't have to.    I can't remember seeing him using jigs and such.   You don't see him drop shottng and such.   His whole game plan is to key in on bait fish.     He uses a bait that mimics some type of forage.

        Can you question his methods?   They work year around and his accomplishments attest to his approach.    

   The only time I think a food source is not on the agenda is when they are taking care of business and nesting.

       Know thy food sources on your home waters, its the key to finding the fish consistently whether they are in summer mode, fall or winter, prespawn.

Yesterday, L Train and myself hit a lake that hasn't been on my list for over a year.    Larry mentioned he liked the jig, so we hit some boat docks for a good portion of the day.  First time ever fishing together.    Very little vegitation on this big lake.

We turned one fish on a cloud covered day.    We think the fish were roaming with cloud cover and weren't holding of docks.   We moved out and hit some points around roads and bridges and put some keepers in the boat.

       Once the day was over, I asked if he minded if I made a pass over deep  open water over some road beds off the bridges.       As I mentioned to him where i thought the shad was holding.     We found more bait balls in open deep water.  There were tons of bait.    AS we moved around, you could see the bait in a relaxed state as I pointed that out, and when  I moved over channels, you could see bait that was pushed out of their comfort zones.     Relaxed schools were at 23 ft and the shad that was been actively fed on with some huge arches under and on the sides, this bait was tight and only down to 12 feet.     Some huge arches that I will be investigating soon.

Larry mentioned that he's not used to fishing deep open water, we will work on that.

Man, I love my graph.    

Prespawn is the best time of the year, it has produced some of the all time biggest bass recorded.    Texas state record was a prespawner in Feb that came from 40ft by a crappie fishermen on a mainlake point adjacent to the mouth of Little Caney creek..   Big Bass love to eat crappie  too!!!\\

I hope I didn't hi jack your thread Catt.    Its a good one.  

   

   

     

Thanks Matt absolutely perfect  

I checked the Sharelunker program which is bass over 13 pounds caught in Texas and out of 442 bass 166 were caught during winter conditions or pre-spawn. The months were the last week of  November through February; I didn't count March since it is considered spawning time in Texas.

Well I just got back from the lake and read all of the post. I can say I agree with just about everything said. I prefer to fish for the prespawn instead and believe that it starts much earlier than most people think.

Mid 50 water temp has me fishing the first flats off the rivers on T Bend and Rayburn and any ditches that I can locate and the mouths of coves. Outer points and secondary points really come into play for me at this time of year. I am as bad as anyone about throwing a rattletrap. boy does it catch fish. You would think the fish would be sluggish but they will waylay a fast moving trap. The people that know me have always said if you don't know where the creeks are just look for Jack, he is never a cast from one. I don't necessary agree but I do know that most of my fish are on a break of some kind and when it comes to spring I believe that knowing where the ditches are that leave the creeks  will get your arm or rod broken. A lot of people fish the grass and you can find them covering it up in the spring. I agree with this except I am not fishing the same grass. I tend to stay out sometimes several hundred yards and fish the isolated grass clumps and humps that most everyone else ignores. If you can locate these areas you tend to have them to yourself and this is where the first prespawners stage as long as there is a break, creek, or ditch that will guide them there.

As far as time of the year I began looking at the mouths of coves after an extended warming spell whether that is in January or even December. I hardly ever site fish. Too much pressure. I tend to fish the prespawners coming and going(Post spawners). I have caught fish up to 9 lbs. as late as June 11 that were loaded with eggs.

I believe that the moon has an awful lot to do with the major spawning and when it is full it draws the females to lock on the bed. All  sight fisherman can have at it. I will get them either coming or going. Humps out in the lake are great spots to fish if you can locate them. When you hear that the fish have moved shallow, just remember that 10-15 ft. is shallow to a fish that has spent the winter in 30.

Catt, do you remember years ago when no one could locate the spawning fish and someone found them out in the middle of the lake spawing in the forks of the trees?

fishfordollars,

     We have some big bass that spawn in the bonnets of some deep trees on Fork every year.   Some of those trees down towards the dam are in 40 feet of water coming up to about 15.    

I also think moon plays a big part, but we have so many fronts moving in, there are times its over cast for long periods, clouds and fronts always seem to interfer.

I'm kinda of getting pumped for a weekend on Fork.

Matt, I totally agree. The year the fish disappeared no one could figure them out until someone stumbled on them. It was amazing. these trees were in deep water. I don't remember the reason it happened but there were a ton of fish caught 5-8 ft over 30-40 ft of water. As far as the fronts go they can wreck havoc on a lot of bed fishing. I just prefer to stay out and fish for the ones moving in and out. I think a lot of people are actually bed fishing without realizing it. They are fishing stained water and cannot see the beds even though they are there. I also believe that a ton of the reallly big fish come on the bed and are long gone a lot earlier than most people think.

Very Interesting!

When you mull this whole thing over, you begin to realize how really unnatural those circumstances were.

I'm sure the cows in those mid-lake haunts were ripe with eggs, but how do we know that those bass were spawning,

or more to the point, how do we know that the bass spawned "successfully"?

In some lakes, a severe drought will erase all shallow flats and bays, but some cows still become ripe with eggs.

However the cows will randomly loose thier eggs, and since bass are nesters and not free-spawners the success rate

will be abysmal. This is one of the causes of those missing year-classes that nearly every lake seems to have.

The reason I ask is because in order for bass eggs to hatch successfully, there "must" be adequate photosynthesis (sunlight).

According to fish biologists, the mean depth for optimal photosynthesis (largemouth bass) is approximately 27 inches.

Of course, this will vary signficantly based on water clarity, but it's generally between 6 inches (murky) and 4 ft (very clear).

Roger

The fertilization and hatching process requires the warmth provided by sunlight penetration which is why the fish migrate into shallow water (with the exception of deep, clear western reservoirs). Bass will bed generally in a foot to 6 feet of water. Ken Cook

"Toledo Bend is not a natural lake, in reality it is a flooded canyon that they put a dam in the lower end of. What this means is that the lake has a lot of flats out in the middle of the lake and when the lake is low these high spots can be great spawning locations. Also the fish have been known to spawn in the tops of the trees in 50 foot of water. Yes water level and conditions can be a major factor as to where you find you're staging fish." Tommy Martin

Keep in mind both temperatures and depths are a generalization not an absolute

Very cool point about spawning in the trees!!  Doesn't apply at my lake but certainly a great insight into the "spawn" equation!

Here in NJ the spawn will happen from about mid April to Mid June. I am convinced that although water temps and weather fronts, etc. are mild factors, that the biggest factor that prompts fish to spawning areas is plain old instinct. Most (even cold blooded) species have measurable gestation periods & seasonal cycles and some you can almost set your watch by them (see the red crabs of Christmas Island). It's obvious that the spawn happens later here than in warmer Southern climes, but I believe the 'instinct' cycles are still the same. Water temps, lunar phases, etc. are just the measuring sticks we use to get in sync with what nature is doing.

If I can find water temps of 55-60 degrees in less than 15' of water on any kind of structure during the 1st week in May, I will stop and fish a while. I did the same thing in LA when I lived there, just 6 or 7 weeks earlier. It's no accident that we will tackle Guntersville and Fork during the last week in March. The weather can push the cycles around a little, but they are still there and are somewhat predictable.

Ronnie

Wow, guys, my brain hurts! You guys have it way more figured out then I do!

There seems to be a bunch of emphasis on the pre spawn and spawn in this post. I believe that the best swimbait bite of the whole year is post spawn. The fish are obviously not as big as they were a couple weeks before, but they are in shallow, warm water and they are ravenously hungry and need to expend as little energy as possible to get as much protein as possible. Fatty, big, dumb rainbow trout offers the best protein vs calories burned out here. But Gizzard Shad, Salmon, herring, or sunfish will probably be menu item #1 lacking trout.

I love sight fishing for spawning fish and this was the first year that I could really get into it because we had a very dry year and the water was clear. the two years before that we had record rainy seasons and most of the lakes were chocolate milk for the spawn.

I spent 2 days on a fish this year and never got her. Sight fishing is the hand to hand combat of the bass fishing war . My first female of the bed this year was a DD and since then, all I can think about is having another 6 hour stare down with one of those monsters. I will try to concentrate this year on fish in the 7-15 foot range because I feel that the majority of the GIANT fish out here are spawning early, very deep in our clear water lakes.

But anyway the real point I guess was that you shouldn't overlook post spawn as a prime big fish period. If you don't have the drive to throw big baits the rest of the year, that first month AFTER the spawn is when I would recomend big baits.

I'd like to hear Mattlures' take on some of this because I know that he is a good spring fisherman!

There seems to be a bunch of emphasis on the pre spawn and spawn in this post. I believe that the best swimbait bite of the whole year is post spawn.

Nice post FourBizz.

I totally agree with you, the post-spawn can be an excellent season for bass fishing. As a matter of fact, if I were asked to choose the very best period in Florida for "Topwater Action", I would pick the post-spawn period hands-down (late April/early May).

On the downside, tradition holds that cow bass are recouping during the post-spawn period and that certainly appears to be the case.

In Florida, the action during the post-spawn will consist almost exclusively of buck bass (bass under 6 lbs).

I can't speak for the others, but when I touted the pre-spawn period, I was referring only to trophy-class bass.

Roger

We must be talking about a different part of the post spawn roger.

The time that I am talking about, the males will still be guarding the nest or fry.

Certainly when the female FIRST comes off the bed she is very neutral. But they can't recoup without food, and they can't waste what little energy they have left chasing 2" shad all over the place. Thats why I think that a very big, slow moving bait out around the first deepwater break or nearest point is the way to go.

But like I said, you guys definitely know more about this than me, just my thoughts/observations.

These fish were the first two fish after I stopped looking for bed fish, both too big to be males and spawned out. 5 FOW main lake points 8" trout bait.

For me there are two times of the year when big bass are easiest to locate/catch; the first is pre-spawn and the second is when they have returned back home to deep structure. I really hate fishing during the actual spawn on Toledo Bend because most generally the lake is high which means the bass will be located deep within buck brush/button willows which are almost impenetrable. Unless you've have seen lakes such as Toledo Bend or Rayburn it is hard to understand how dense this shoreline brush actually is; try to get a mental picture of 15-25 yards of dense brush that if you were on foot you couldn't walk through.

Give me pre-spawn when the bass are staging outside of the brush or a full moon night on deep structure.  

This picture is not close up on the shoreline but if you look at the willow tree directly behind the boat; that is the actual shoreline. The short brush in front of the willow is buck brush which is where the bass will be located once the spawn begins.

I would now like to hear from Fish Chris, Mattlures, Randall, fourbizzle, Matt Fly, George Welcome, Raul, flechro, Alspter, Aint Texan & many others.

Well, I dont know how I missed this one. Good stuff here. Everything that has already been said by Catt, RoLo, LBH, Fourbizz, Matt Fly, and most others here I have experienced and agree with. One thing to add is since its multiple reasons on when and why fish spawn when they do you can't take one thing like temp and figure out when it will start or when prespawn will start although if you fish a lake enough you will have a good idea of when they are likley to happen. Winter temps here in GA also have an effect on gestation period. For example if its been a cold winter, since bass are cold blooded ,the eggs take longer to develop and even if the temps hit the right temps for prespawn , spawn, etc and the photo period and time of year is right those fish still will not spawn until the eggs are ready. If its been a very warm winter the eggs develop faster and even if the water temps fall way below the usual prespawn and spawn temps come late winter or early spring the fish will still go into a prespawn stage. The key is putting all of this info together as well as the current lake conditions and knowing where and how to fish for the most and biggest fish. I also make a note during the winter of where the coolest water is in the lake so I have a clue as to where the last spawning and prespawn fish will be found. In many years this cooler water is in the deeper areas of the lake and in other years its the areas with the shallowest water in the lake depending on the weather.

I have also seen the quick warming shallow water areas that LBH is talking about and that's where I usually find the first prespawn fish but not always. These first ones are usually grouped by size and I can sit my boat on a migration route into shallow water and let the fish come to me without ever moving the boat at times. Last year I fished two small spots on one shallow creek channel going into the shallowest water in the lake for a month catching waves of these feeding prespawn fish. I never left the spots which were within 50 yards of each other until the day was over. I went there every morning and fished there all day. The fish just came in waves and you couldn't catch all the fish coming through into the shallows. It might turn off for fifteen to thirty minutes before the next wave came through.  One day I never moved the boat for five hours and we never made a cast anywhere else except in one twenty foot by twenty foot spot. We had five that went around thirty-five pounds out of around fifty fish  It was nice as a guide to fish for almost a whole month and fish two areas about 100 feet long each and never have to find any more spots to fish or worry about beating the same fish until they wouldn't bite. You got fresh active moving feeding fish that hadn't seen a bait all day long. In this area fish will not spawn because of the bottom makeup and after the last wave of feeders comes and the fish start to leave to build beds and spawn I have to go find more prespawners in another area or find some spawners but its fun while it lasts.

I don't think fish move shallow to recon a spawning site until they are ready to spawn. They move to feed and then move back out and suspend since the deeper water offers safety and the shallow water offers more food and ambush areas. I say this just based on where I have caught a few fish at different times and have seen the same fish caught in a prespawn area that wasn't near the area I found it spawning in later. And from just watching fish in clear water during prespawn and spawn. Its just a guess though and it don't really mater as long as I can find and catch them. ;)I don't care why they are there just that they are there and that they will bite.

On lake Varner the toughest time to catch a big female is during the spawn unless you are really good at fishing beds or really good at swimbait fishing.  Our best bite for the biggest fish is usually when the water is 48-55 after that it's tough to catch the big ones. There are a bunch of reasons for this. One is that there is a lot of big forage in the form of big gizzard shad shallow with the bass and the bigger bass just need one big shad a day to feed on since the water is still cool and they aren't digesting very fast. This is where a big swimbait comes in but its a tough bite. There is also a lot of fishing pressure and moving fish which means the fish don't school as tight or in big numbers as they did when the water was cooler.

I have also seen the fish spawning shallow in deep timber over deep water and fish suspended just under the surface in deep open water during the spring. Most of the time I have seen this it is during a very fast warming period where the water makes a big jump from cold to warm temps in a couple of days time. I saw this last year during very erratic unstable weather during the spring. I could guess that the water warms so fast the fish just make a verticle move instead of having time to adjust and make a horizonal move shallow or that the deeper water is more stable but I am happy with just knowing to check for it when I see conditions that I can relate to that happend in the past.  Good topic, posts and lots of things I could go on with but its past my bedtime.

A very interesting read Randall...as usual

We must be talking about a different part of the post spawn roger.

The time that I am talking about, the males will still be guarding the nest or fry.

I think we're both on the same page fourbizz.

Like you said, the role of the buck during the post-spawn is to protect the fry, and his aggressive disposition makes him especially vulnerable.

Meanwhile, the cow has completed her mission and leaves the shallow flat. ""Supposedly"" the cow retreats to somewhat deeper water

in a notoriously negative mood. You make an excellent point however...How can a cow recoup without eating?

I don't know answer to that question but one thing is sure,

the number of big cows that are reported during the pre-spawn period will decline dramatically during the post-spawn.

On the other hand, the Topwater Bite (consisting of bucks) gets into full swing during the post-spawn,

due to the winning combination of belligerent bucks in warm shallow water.

By the way, I don't buy that garbage about anybody knowing more than anyone else!

The great thing about fishing is that we all learn from one another, a process that goes on forever...and ever

Roger

Once a Female has spewed her eggs out onto the nest, can she still lay more on another nest?

They can, will, and do!

Once a Female has spewed her eggs out onto the nest, can she still lay more on another nest?

You bet.

All the eggs of the cow do not ripen at once, which allows her to service more than one nest.

By the same token, practically every bed site will be visited by more than one cow.

For this reason, the difference between the pre-spawn, spawn and post-spawn is a hazy gray area.

The significant overlap makes it almost impossible to positively identify the current disposition of bass.

According to In-Fisherman, once the cow's hormones are on the wane she enters the post-spawn stage regardless of eggs that still remain.

Roe-laden cows taken from deep water are frequently mistaken for spawning bass, even though they may be done spawning.

We've all caught bass containing yellow roe "after" the cow has finished spawning. I think it was ouachitabassangler who wrote,

if she's only been sparingly selected by male bass, she may contain a substantial cache of leftover roe.

Roger

Everyone can have an opinion, however the biological facts are fact based. LMB start to stage for pre spawn at the end of the cold water period. Adult female bass start to develope eggs shortly after spawning and the eggs remain dormant until hormones stirred by warm water start their development. Warm water is relative to the eccosystem, generally around 50 degrees in cold water environments. Staging or pre spawn in most lakes and rivers starts around 55 degrees, spawn at 62 to 67 degrees at the water depth the bass are using to spawn.

WRB

Conventional knowledge indicates that the male bass builds the nest, fans it out and guards it (zealously). Generally, a good male that is aggressive and active will attract more than one female to his nest and spawn with each of them. Along with that, an active female will spawn a number of times and, in most cases, in a number of different males' nests. She moves down the shoreline making it with different males. The male sits in one spot and waits for more females to come by. I think that is sort of a hedge (on the part of the female) against an infertile male spoiling the hatch of a good fertile female. So she spread her eggs around and he spreads his fertility around. That ensures a higher success rate for that spawn.

That is important knowledge for fishermen, because most people think that once the female leaves the bed, only the male is left. It is true that the female only guards the nest for a short time before moving away, but other females will come to that nest. The other thing to keep in mind is that this isn't a long, drawn-out process. Once the water reaches the upper 60 degrees, which is ideal, it only takes about three or four days for the eggs to hatch. I think the male will spend about six weeks on the beds as the females rotate through, but the whole spawning season happens over three full moons, bringing a new wave of spawning with each full moon period.

Cook emphasizes that understanding the spawning habits of the female bass will significantly improve your chances of catching some of the biggest bass of the year. He believes that the female often moves on and off of the bed to deposit more eggs (hatchery studies support this claim). Few females drop all of their eggs at once. Instead, they expel a portion and then move off to a near by break line, bush or grass edge.

It is this sporadic purging of eggs and the ability to spawn with different males on several nests that keeps the annual spring bedding season from being severely impacted by large tournaments. Texas Parks & Wildlife Department biologist Clarence Bowling says studies have shown that a female (when handled properly) will simply locate a bed and an available male in the area where she is released and complete spawning.

Ken Cook, a former Oklahoma fisheries biologist

I have resently recieved PM's on this subject and even though it's still winter this is an excellent read for those with cabin fever or those thoughts of the coming season!

If I read this correctly, it seems what everyone is saying, is the spawn periods are different by location, and if you want to be real successful, then you best know your location real well.

I find the easiest way to sort our which period they are in is to sample the areas. For example, I know that in sunny south Florida, the prespawn period will have the bass moving from their summer regions to the outside areas of spawning locations. It doesn't take a thousand casts to figure if that is happening. At the same time I will test spawn areas to see if there is male activity of nest construction. Again, not a lot of casts to sort this out either.

The key is to know your lake, do some testing of the known areas, and you will find this whole process not difficult to keep up with.

On a lake that is unfamiliar local advise is worth 2000 casts. For example, on the Marsh/Farm we have many areas that look ideal for spawn activity, but only a few that really do. Without the knowledge of where, you could spend days locating these areas, and when you do it may be too late. Don't be too proud to ask.