Springtime bass fishing means fishing around the spawn. It's all centered around the spawn. It's all about that. So in the early part of the spring, you're talking pre spawn, you get the water temperature gets around that 60° mark, now you're talking spawn. And then when you get beyond that, you're talking post spawn. So how do you go about fishing those? Because the conditions change so fast and so do the fish. You can't fish it the same way throughout the whole spring. So let's let's break it down here.
Pre spawn, I'm talking about the water temperature gets in that. 40s right around the 50° mark. Those fish are just coming up out of the winter. Deep areas and they're starting to get active. Couple key things about that. First of all, they're not going to be super shallow. They're going to be in somewhere between the deep water and those spawning flats.
Now the best way to find it is kind of work yourself backwards. Where are the spawning areas that they're going to? Be at. So there's a hard bottom, flat areas. I've got some protection to it. Those are the areas you want to look for and then back your way out of it a little bit. That is deeper areas and I'm talking, you know, 10 to 15 foot deep, 8 to 15 foot deep. That's where they're going to start staging and getting ready to spawn. So earlier that 50° mark, they're going to be in that deeper area, 15 foot, maybe 20 foot.
Reaching them can be a little bit difficult. So jigs is what I would use for that. And Texas rig soft plastics right there in the very beginning, and here you're just dragging on the bottom and giving little hops and twitches, but working them. Fairly slow through those like main leg points and some secondary points, humps, ridges, those steep rocky banks those are the areas that you know I call them transition banks those steep areas that's where the bass are going to use as kind of a highway as they move up into the shallow areas those are areas that would target.
As the water warms up and gets to those mid 50s now you can move up with them you can go on a little bit more of a sloping type bank you can go to this docks, weed lines, any kind of flooded Bush and, what I like to do is if I've got an area where there's some flooded bushes that's on a Ridge or a drop right adjacent to a drop that drops down to 7 to 12 feet deep, they'll get right up on it. Even though it's in 4 foot deep or so, they'll get right up in there because it's right adjacent to deep water. Those are areas to target. As well, docs and similarities, same type of thing. Got a Creek channel that comes right up along the docks. That's a great place to fish. Gives them cover in shallow water, but the quick access to deep water. And so I'd be using crankbaits then. Lipless crank baits are really dynamite right now. In that time of year. I crawdad colored ones. A lot of times the bait fish, that's what the bass are feeding on, are on bait fish. But the crawdads become more active this time of year than they've been all winter long and so the bass start to target that as well. So that becomes a staple in their diet. So crawdad color crankbaits work really well.
Speaking of bait fish, jerk baits, suspending jerk baits work exceptionally well. Deep diving wants to begin with the ones that get below, you know, 10 foot deep in those deeper areas I just mentioned, twitch it and work it slowly to that key area, like a point or a sunken rock pile. And then let it sit there and hover and give it little subtle twitches. And that's oftentimes what it takes to get those big pre spawned bass to bite them. So it works very, very well.
As the spring progresses and the temperature warms up. You can work those baits faster and move to shallow or medium diving jerk baits and continue to catch them that way.
Spinner baits also are a good thing to fish during the pre spawn. Again, the deeper in the very beginning deeper areas, you want to slow roll that. I'm using a three quarter oz, sometimes a single Colorado blade or a double Indiana blade spinner bait, just white with a white trailer. So it's a shad or a bait fish kind of color. Slow rolling along those deeper areas and deeper banks and sharper banks. Earlier in the spring and then as we get closer to the spawn I start to bring those back at a clipping pace and along docks and along cover weed lines type of things like that and a lot of times you can get those aggressive fish with those baits so like those are the main things that I'm fishing in pre spawn.
When you get to spawn yeah you see the beds it's usually a clear circular area that's lighter than the rest of the. Bottom Sometimes they're not easy to find. Sometimes they're hidden up under, you know, cover and right up against things that are difficult to see. They conceal themselves very well. Just because our bass is on his bed does not mean he's easy to catch, and it often takes repeated casts over and over and over again to figure out what's going to get them to bite. Every bass has its own personality. It's kind of like a cat or dog or a horse. If you ever had them, you know that they all have their own little personality quirks. Bass of the same way, especially when on a bed. What gets 1 bass to trigger and bite that lure? You go to the next bed. It's not going to work for that bass. So you've got to figure him out and what's going to trigger him. That's part of the challenge and the fun.
A fishing bedded bass. And I like to use. Texas rig plastics for this reason because it typically in areas where you can get snagged. So a Texas rig tube or a Texas rig lizard works really well. Texas rig rage bug, it's kind of a bluegill profile to it and those are nest raters. Those 3 baits are what I'm using the most when I'm fishing for bed and bass. The key thing when you're fishing bedded bass is if when you catch them, you know, photograph them, weigh them and then let them go, let them get back to that bed so they can continue doing their thing. Can finish the spawn process so you've got plenty of fish for the years to come don't keep them if you're out there meat fishing don't target betting bass please because you're doing a lot of harm to the fishery by doing that so just. Have fun, catch him, and then let him go.
Postspawn is kind of a weird period. You've got this immediate funk of postponed funk right after they spawn where the majority of the fish are just, you know, they're recuperating, they're tired from the spawn, they haven't been eating, they haven't been feeding much, so they're recuperating and they're not very aggressive. So during that period. I'm throwing stick baits, you know, Yum dingers. Flukes. Senkos real slow moving weightless baits, wacky rigged or Texas rig that that seems to be like the killer bait during that post funk. You know that post funk only lasts a couple of weeks, maybe two weeks at the most, Not very long. So it's a short period, but sometimes that's the only thing they're going to bite is a slow moving weightless plastic bait.
Right after that, though, is when they put the feed bag on. Now they're hungry. Hey, man, I gotta eat. And they and they, they go crazy. They start biting a lot of baits. Plus you've got fry guarders. You've got males that are now guarding these balls of fry that have hatched and they're aggressive. They're going to protect those. Fry, so top Otter baits, these baits baits can be very aggressive on top of her. So buzz baits, walking baits, prop baits, pop bars, you know, frogs, frogs can be very good right now because all those fry are going to go up into cover. They're going to, you know, they naturally go to areas where they can get some protection. So they're going to go into weeds, they're going to flooded bushes, timber up under docks and dock pilings, bringing a frog over the top of them or a buzz bait. Top of them office often elicits a strike from those guard those fry guarders and again, same with.
Bedding bass, if you catch a fried guarder, let them go so you can do his job because if he's not there to protect those fry predators, they'll come up and eat them and all that spawning process will be for nothing. So I'll make sure you let him go. Those bigger females, they're going to move off a little bit deeper. You're going to find them. Where the spawning areas were, that next deeper drop, that cover that's in the next, you know, layer of deeper water. So in that 5 to 10 foot zone, maybe 5 to 12 foot zone, you can find a weed line there. Deeper dock pilings, rock piles, scatter chunk rock docks. Maybe there's a creek channel that comes along there. That deeper area, that's where the females are going to be hanging out. And I like to, again, top waters are really good for them. But crankbaits, spinner baits, chatter baits, those are the things. For those bigger females, that's really what I want to go after it in this post Bond period.
Another couple key things to consider. Postpawn is that now that the bass are done spawning, other species will start spawning, Bluegill in particular. Bluegill beds are easy to spot. They do it out in the open and they're right near each other. So you got like these little, you know, dinner sized plate spawning beds and they'll be like like craters all over, like an open area. I think that's bluegill. If you look very carefully, you'll find a little bluegill sit in the middle of them. Well, if there's cover nearby. Man, the bass got covered and they got food. They're not going anywhere. Like some people think right after the spawn the bass all scatter out of the shallows and they're gone. They're in deep water. Those bluegill are spawning. Those bats are going to hang out and feed on those bluegill. So fishing bluegill imitator baits is really good. Again, those top waters work really well too.
Another phenomenon that happens in a post bond period is the shad spawn. The shad starts spawning. They shad at night, let's shad, they spawn at night. And into the early morning hours. So you go out there fishing. This is a good time to get out there. The crack of dawn. And you can catch the shad spawn and all those bass are up shallow feeding on those shad very aggressively. So a crankbait, A shad style crank bait or spinner bait can be very, very productive in that first hour or two of dawn before the sun gets really up in the air. And you can get a lot of fish. A lot of times you can get up there, get up early, you know, launch right at the crack of dawn, fish those first couple of hours and catch a butt load of bass. And then? Put your boat back up on the trailer and go home and do yard work. Whatever it is you want to do. Go to the ball game with the kids, Do what you want to do and you can have yourself a great day. You don't have to spend all day on the water fishing because the bite does slow down considerably after the shad spawns. Done.
If you like to stay out all day, knock yourself out. But I'm just saying sometimes you can. If you want to get in a few hours of good fishing, that early morning bike can be really good in post spawn period. So make sure you take advantage of it. So that's how you attack the spawn. During the springtime, you just break it down. That spawn is that inflection point and break the spring down into many seasons and you can be a lot more productive and catch a lot more fish. I hope that helps. For more tips and tricks like this, visit bassresource.com.
