For you who are disinterested with winter climate and all set to begin angling, ice angling is commonly a favorable chance. New England residents have a host of opportunities almost literally right outside the back door. Fishermen can catch striped bass as early as March, and April brings the chance to fish for fluke (additionally called winter flounder). Bass and fluke are more plentiful this time of year because they procreate close to the coastline.
Present restrictions have recently been established on winter flounder owing in large part to over-fishing and conflicting breeding habitats. These restrictions have shortened winter flounder season to just 6 or 8 weeks, but this still offers lots of time for a excellent winter fluke season.
Unlike summer flounder, you be capable of effortlessly fish for winter flounder with fairly light line (8-12 lbs) and a rod as compact as 6-7 feet is adequate. You should remember that these fish weight only around 2-3 lbs!
Designing a winter flounder rig can be as simple or as difficult as you decide to make it. In any case, accomplishment is practically certain provided that you make use of the tinier hooks, that are a important part of angling for winter flounder. Petite hooks and weights are used to keep bait at the bottom and are adjustable for both the habitation where winter flounder are found and their tiny, basically toothless mouths.
Your next step is to put together bait for winter flounder with yellow grubs or beads secured to the shaft. Winter flounder rigs are recognized for their bright yellow bait. Regardless of whether you pick to fish with mussel, sandworms or bloodworms as bait, the bright yellow helps catch the attention of winter flounder.
Chumming is another good idea when you are fishing for winter flounder. This is true whether you fish while anchored in a boat or from the shore, and this method helps draw inpacked schools of winter flounder. You will have all the gear you crave to maximize your winter flounder fishing adventure once you merely acquire your chum pots at a local bait and tackle shop. Merely fasten the pot to an stiff area near the shoreline or secure it to your boat.
If you’d prefer to cast two or more rods simultaneous, you can do so following the boat, one in the identical course as the current is flowing and the other by the side of the boat near the chum pot. This is a wonderfully effective way for you to maximize your day’s catch and the materials used, a asset for any fisherman.
Winter flounder have a tendency of gathering as a group in areas where they can discover food in abundance, so it is likely that you will catch a group of them in quite shallow water. As a rule of thumb, the more shallow the water, the warmer it will be, and as a result the more abundant the fluke’s food source. Consequently, you can ordinarily come upon a school of winter flounder by an region of sand and gravel that effortlessly becomes mud on a common basis.
Winter flounder season is a awesome way to get back into angling behind a long and bitter cold season, particularly for saltwater anglers. These lightly flavored fish are additionally an excellent way to assist restock your freezer between the winter and summer angling seasons.
Go to http://www.saltwaterfishing247.com for more information on Shimano Salt and Fresh water Spinning Reel, they also carry Daiwa Saltwater Spinning Reels.
Before you can go turkey hunting for those wild turkeys, you’ve got to find them. The least complicated way is to start with the big picture, locating general places of turkey habitat, then gradually narrow it down to a certain area, then a certain piece of land, then certain hunting areas. Wildlife biologists, conservation officers, sporting goods dealers and hunting club members are excellent places to begin. ask about federal and state lands, wildlife management areas, reservoir properties and military reservations. Don’t forget about private lands. Some landowners will allow permission to hunters who ask courteously, or perhaps you can wrangle an invitation out of a good friend.
Field scouting begins after you have identified several possible hunting destinations. Get a good chart of the area you prepare to hunt. Drive the back roads during the first couple of hours after dawn, stopping along ridges, high points, power lines, open creek and river bottoms to listen for gobbling.
Use a turkey call or a locator call, such as an owl hooter or crow call while turkey hunting, to try to get a response. When you hear a Old Tom, tag the area on a chart. If you get a bird to reply to you, don’t continue to call to him. This frequently causes gobblers to become call shy and they will not respond to you once the season opens. In addition, birds that continue to gobble also tend to attract the attention of other hunters who might be hunting the spot.
Finally, scout your finest locations on foot. Check for signs of scratching where birds have been feeding. Droppings and feathers can also provide you with details about turkeys in the spot. Gobbler droppings tend to be club shaped, while hen droppings have a corkscrew look. A gobbler’s body feathers are black tipped, while hen feathers are buff colored. Check along creek banks and around mud holes for footprints. In the evenings listen for birds flying up to roost. If you are able to roost birds, come back the next morning and listen for gobbling.
Make as many journeys to the spot as possible before the season starts. Learn the land features: creeks, log roads, fencerows, pastures, etc. This will help afterwards when you are moving during an actual hunt. Hopefully, by opening day you will know the area of numerous turkeys.
Please visit www.turkeyhunting247.com for more info on turkey hunting tips, as well as a wide variety of articles and videos on hunting turkey season.
Florida is many things to many people. Lots of sunshine, beaches and great seafood. It’s also a mecca for the fisherman. Whether seeking fish in the deep blue saltwater, or fishing for varies species of freshwater fish, Florida is the ticket. A Florida fishing vacation is well within your reach.
In the interior lakes of the Sunshine State, largemouth bass is king. The long warm growing season lets the bass grow to huge sizes. Most anglers predict the next largemouth bass world record will come from Florida.
Coastal waters offer Tarpon fishing in the mangroves, and all along both coasts are thousands of charter boats just waiting to take anglers way out in the briney deep for sailfish and marlin.
So, if you’re dreaming about a vacation where you can have it all, think Florida. A fishing vacation might be just the medicine you need right about now.
As a kid I remember some things so clearly. Things I have no business recalling, but I do. Like the kerosene lanterns that stood on the floor of our little back porch. They were like little soldiers all lined up, in case the storms came, and the power went out, which it did back then with some regularity.
It was then that Dad brought out the lanterns and lit each carefully and positioned it wherever we needed some light, which was just about anywhere. We didn’t even have a street light on our little dusty road.
There was something both mystical and magical about the dancing shadows cast by the flickering flames. A hunt of bruning wick and the aroma of the oil floated through the otherwise dark house.
I ordered a couple of the oil lamps recently. Used em too. Thunderstorm approached and my two little oil lamps saved the night. Never do have any flashlights around that work.
Sometimes I take one of the lanterns with me when I sit on the back porch on these nice mountain evenings. I light the little wick, turn it down low and listen to the warble of the nightbirds and the shirping of the crickets.
And I hum that old song my sister used to sing. “he made the night a little brighter, wherever he would go. The old lamplighter, of long, long ago.”
Over the past half-century the world of fishing reels has changed immensely. We went from the old knuckle busting reels to modern marvels made of titanium and graphite. The free spools let us cast fishing lures of almost no weight at all. The internal gears transferred power like none other.
lIt makes you wonder what in the world will be out there in the future for fishing reels.
Why I don’t have a tacklebox.
Tackleboxes are overrated. I grew up in the deep south and we look with some degree of distain on fancy pancy stuff. Like tackleboxes. I carry all my fishing stuff in a cloth bag. It’s made of some kind of canvbas and I don’t know where I got it but it holds all my fishing stuff very nicely.
After all, how much stuff does one need to catch a fish? A pole, some line, a hook and maybe a few little sinkers. Add some bait to the hook and the fish are in trouble. All of this goes into my tackle sack and still leaves room for a few cans of beer. Life is good when you’re frugal as well as innovative.
Yes, I have been the subject of some sneering so-called angler types who think their high tech tackleboxes are so totally awesomely cute. Just look at all those nifty compartments with all the nifty lures and spinners and plugs. Stuff they have never used and will never use because all you really need to cat a fish is mentioned above.
So, if you see me some day ambling down the riverbank with my trusty cane pole and my black tackle sack, just know that I am one happy dude. I may not make the cover of some splashy fishing mag, but I will be content to just cat some fish for supper.
Pike Fish is found in Arctic fresh waters which are large in size and are seen mostly in rivers and lakes. They can feed on everything that floats like Chub, Walleyes, other Pike or Suckers. For Pike Fishing, small lures and baits are not effective and rather Pike Fishing Tackles should be used, although the small Pike can also be sporty on light tackle and would save a dull day on water. The spawning season for Pike is the spring months of May and June during which they frequent the shallow of lakes or warm weeds where they can easily lay eggs and make these spots very attractive for fishing.
The best part is that Pike are one of the easy to catch fish and are generally found around their prey. These are the weedy portions around shoals, bays, islands, rocky areas or at the shores of streams or rivers. These weeds also provide protection to the Pike eggs to which the prey fish get attracted and make it easy for fish hunters to do fishing. The Pike move in the lakes all year round hunting for food in normal water temperature and generally they get caught while fishing due to this frequenting in the shallows.
Some of the Pike anglers love to fish from the river bank as there are many developed river and lake fisheries which provide good access for fishing whereas the other Pike anglers like to tackle the fish from a boat. All the major Pike waters offer Pike angling and boat hiring services which are mostly provided by the accommodation providers on the nearest pike waters in their area. The Pike anglers use a variety of methods for fishing like static dead baiting, wobbling, lure and fly fishing and spinning. A Pike Fishing Tackle should be strong enough, sturdy and handy to fight the large fish as it is the most important feature of fishing. These tackles are available in all sizes and are of different kinds therefore, the best suited tackle should be chosen for Pike Fishing.
Some other accessories in the tackle bag should be like an ideal sized rod as the extra length of the rod helps in controlling the Pike’s head and provides more flexibility in catching the fish, a strong reel with a tough disc drag as the Pike make short and strong runs which can strip the fly reel with their force and if the drag is not strong enough, then they could pull out the line and land the people in soup, therefore, a good reel with a strong drag system should be used to retain the fish around bay and a line should also be there in the tackle bag that matches the weight of fly rod. A bass tapered leader can be used to flip over large flies but however, a Pike specific leader is always better to use. A wire or a braided trace which are strong enough can also be kept to tie the teeth of fishes to restrain them from cutting the line. These are all the accessories which should be carefully chosen for quality and kept in the tackle bag for Pike Fishing.
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Veteran hunters always try to place all of the odds in their favor. That’s why they have success. They know their game, their guns and plan for next season now. When it comes to keeping up with the trends in guns, we recommend Recoil Gun Magazine The best information from the best source.
Everydeer hunter and deer manager wants to know, “What is the best thing to plant for white-tailed deer food plots?” There really is no easy answer. First, there are several counter-questions that must first be addressed before an answer can be tossed out.
Spring or fall food plot?
What type of soil do you have?
How much rainfall do you get?
What type of equipment do you have?
How much do you want to spend on seed?
As you can see, many variables exists that determine which plant species can be used for food plot material on parcel of land in a given area. Although there is no common answer to the above questions, there are some “common” plants may work in your area. In particular, today we are discussing common plant species that can be planted in the spring, although some of the species may not be used until later in the summer.
Sorghum
Grain sorghum, milo, or sometimes even referred to as maize, can make a great and simple spring/summer food plot for deer. Sorghum is a solid choice for food plots where high whitetail densities prevent most other grain crops from making it through the summer. The plant itself is not consumed at all during the summer, but the seed heads are well-used during the late-summer and fall.
The fact that a sorghum plant is not consumed by deer all but guarantees an annual crop. Sorghum is a more resilient plant than corn and will compete well with weeds — and still produce heads! It does not require a lot of water, so it grows well even during fairly dry summers. And since sorghum is basically a large grass, it is easy to plant. Simply prepare the ground by disking, broadcast the seeds, and roll or drag to ensure good seed-soil contact.
head, a member of Team Evinrude, recently won the FLW EverStart Bass Fishing Series Championship on Kentucky Lake. When asked what was the one key factor in his win, he said “Without a doubt, the Alabama Rig. The Alabama Rig opens up a whole new world in fall bass fishing.”
Before we get into the what, where, when and how to fish and Alabama Rig, I wanted to talk with Dan some about his win on Kentucky Lake. Dan has fished Kentucky Lake all his life, and admitted that he is very confident here most of the time. However, Dan likes to deer hunt, and come the fall he can be found in the woods instead of on the water. So with all his experience on Kentucky Lake he wasn’t exactly ecstatic with the thought of a fall tournament there. “I only fish Kentucky in the fall when ‘they’ make me”, he said chuckling. The home lake curse is often just that, with local anglers struggling to catch a winning stringer. Dan was able to best the rest of the field by several pounds, begging the question, how did you overcome the home town jinx. Dan was quick to say that over-all there was a home lake advantage; it was not a curse this time. “Once I figured out what was going on, I was able to use my knowledge to duplicate the structure that was producing throughout the lake.” Dan went on to say, “on the last day of practice I figured out what was going on, and because I know this lake so well, I had endless places to fish.”
Conditions for this tournament were typical fall fishing.
Water Temperature: 59-62 Degrees
Water Clarity: 4-5 feet visibility in the areas he was fishing
Water Level: Normal scheduled winter pool
Weather Conditions: Rirst two days were overcast, third day was sunny and no wind, last day sunny with gusts to 15 mph.
Dan had a great pre practice for this event. Pre practice is the time on the water before official cut off. With the help of a local friend, Dan caught 5 fish limits upwards of 25 pounds on a Zara Spook over stump covered flats. Dan told me, “I 100% felt this pattern would hold up through the summer and into fall; bass were there, food was there, all the conditions were right for this to last.” Dan continued, “I spent my first two days of practice working this pattern, trying to force it, make it work; it didn’t.” On his third day of practice, he realized he needed a change. Competitors were catching plenty of fish in the backs of coves. Smaller fish had large balls of bait fish pushed up into the bays. However, this pattern did not have the size to win this event. Dan said, “This tournament was not for points, go big or go home.”
Knowing the lake as he did, along with the fall feeding in the backs of the coves, Dan started working the deeper breaks on the way out from the backs of these coves. “On the third day of practice, I found that there were quality fish hanging on the first deep water breaks as you headed back to the main lake. I was able to catch a couple tournament quality fish on a Zara Spook.” The 4th and final practice day is where it all came together for Dan, “The sun came out, and we had some wind. This is when the Alabama Rig can really shine, and it did.”
Having already ‘spotted’ the rest of the field, of competitors, three days of practice time Dan’s home field advantage began to shine. Because he fought so long to find quality bass, Dan didn’t have much time to duplicate his findings throughout the lake. However, he was confident with his knowledge of the lake and put it to good use, culminating in winning the Championship. I asked Dan what his thoughts were about why many anglers fall to the home town jinx. He replied, “Anglers fish memories and not patterns, you have to stick with the pattern. Use your knowledge of the bass fishing water to duplicate what you’ve found.” As you have read, Dan almost got caught up in the memory fishing, hitting the flats that he had found bass on prior to cut off. I asked Dan about this, he replied, “that’s a loaded question, yes I was fishing an area I had found fish before; however, this pattern and that area set up right for the fall. The pattern just wasn’t there.”
Okay enough with my personal quest to find out how Dan beat ‘The Curse’, let’s find out about the Alabama Rig. Dan started fishing the Alabama Rig back in May of this year, seeing the potential for catching schooling or suspending fish. Dan told me that he spent many hours on the water learning this bait, from how to cast and retrieve it, to how to maximize its potential.
As winter rapidly disappears, spring is practically upon us. New things begin to blossom, and another season of bass fishing is one of them. I have caught some lunker bass at this time of the year by merely, but carefully, monitoring the water temperature. When the water warms to about 42-45 degrees, big bass will move into extremely shallow flats to sun themselves.
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In this article, I am not going to concentrate on just one technique, but several, in hopes that you can utilize all of them and make your spring fishing experience an enjoyable, and productive one.
One of the techniques that I prefer using would be waking a spinnerbait in the shallow water. Using a spinnerbait with a Colorado blade is very productive in the shallows because the melting snow that washes into the water creates a muddy water situation, and the Colorado blade produces enough hard-thumping vibrations to help bass hone in on it when their visibility is limited. As the water warms and clears up, I would suggest using willow leaf blades because they produce less vibration and give your bait a natural appearance.
Another thing that should be taken into consideration is the fact that not all the big bass are shallow. Have you ever fished the warmest water that you could find, and caught nothing but short fish? This is usually a sign that the small males are cruising the shallows looking for nest-building areas, which tells you it is also pre-spawn time. The larger fish are probably under your boat or behind you suspending in deeper water. Well, when this happens, I would suggest switching to a suspending jerkbait.
Wood, rocky bluffs, and points, are other places where bass often stage prior to moving into the shallow spawning areas. Fishing these areas with a suspending jerkbait will not only trigger a reaction bite, but will also give away their location.
Now another tactic would be to fish 8- to 10-foot breaklines. I would start fishing for active fish by using a medium running crankbait, and fishing parallel to the breakline. Now when the fish are at this depth you can cover a lot of water by throwing a lipless crankbait, paralleling the breakline. Be sure to remember that in the spring the bass’ attention will turn back to crawfish, just like in the fall. So I would suggest using some type of crawfish-colored pat-tern. One of my favorite would be the Mann’s Baby 1 Minus for shallow water in a chartreuse craw color, and the Spro Prime crankbait slow floating model in the gold/black color.
If this does not produce then I would switch to a jig & pig combination or a plastic craw, and cast it onto the top of the drop and slowly inch it off the edge. I would continue this until I locate them, then refine the technique that was used.
Now these are just a few techniques that have really helped me catch big bass during the early spring season. If you stay versatile, and concentrate not on what the fish should be doing, but what they are doing, you will find your arms getting tired from catching those springtime lunkers.
Until next time, stay focused, stay warm, and keep the line tight.
Angling is a wonderful hobby and pastime appreciated by individuals worldwide. Sportfishing is a wonderful purpose to invest time experiencing the good thing about nature. It could be something excellent to perform alone, or you can use it as a means to get in touch with loved ones. Stick to this article’s angling ideas.
Every single excellent fisherman demands to make sure they have plenty of sharp hooks. A straightforward way to gauge the sharpness of your hook is to find out if it foliage a damage whenever you pull it combined your fingernail. If it doesn’t take place, develop or substitute your hook. That is certainly, if you would want to catch seafood!
A fisherman that’s just beginning might be intelligent to adopt a visit having an professional first. You can find a great deal information you can obtain from a specialist, which can only help you develop into a far better fisherman. Do research and pick a guideline that has a good status.
A very sharp hook is crucial to reeling in every fish. Without having a sharp hook, your prey is not likely to stay in your series while you reel it in. You ought to be very diligent in often ensuring that your hooks are sharp. Just before each and every outing, substitute or improve those that are boring. Now if you are a surfer, then this video will be worth a look, it’s a rip curl e bomb wetsuit.
You must give fly sportfishing a shot! There are several advantages if you are fly fishing, and you need to understand that fly fishing is noticeably different from other kinds of offshore fishing. If you’re thinking about this sort of fishing, you’ll have to have a various group of products including: rods, lures, and even the kind of clothes you are to put on.
A spinnerbait constitutes a excellent rookie-warm and friendly attract for any individual seeking to move beyond earthworms. When fishing inside a questionable area, this type of lure is definitely good. It’s also great for angling around a dock in murky h2o. Each bass and crappie are fascinated by spinnerbait lures.
Consider having a web or gaff to help you land big species of fish. A gaff lets you grasp the seafood preferable to deliver it within your boat. A world wide web may well be far better since you’re more unlikely that to wound the species of fish. This will make preparing the seafood easier.
Look at the water’s current to discover the strong-water regions. If you will be river fishing, be on the lookout for the aspects of deepest water. Seafood normally congregate in these particular places. The place around sizeable rocks and near underwater ledges tend to be teeming with sea food. You will need to recall where the greatest offshore fishing spots are placed for the following time.
When angling for bass you will need to fully understand a number of issues. Learn the behaviors of the species of fish and where they are likely to swim. You should also investigate the times of day time where bass will be most lively. With bass angling, it’s vital that you educate yourself up to you are able to.
If you find your self with new beneficial ideas for making the next sportfishing outing a great one particular, this short article is doing its job. There is a lot of know-how obtainable about fishing, so you can generally carry on studying fishing and refining your offshore fishing knowledge.
There are some very unique issues that govern the approaches you want to use in fishing for pre-spawn bass. To begin with, the phrase “pre-spawn bass fishing” means different things to different fishermen. The period can be loosely thought of as the patterns that begin with the emerging signs of spring. These include longer days, and thus longer periods of the warming rays of the sun for greater impact in protected waters.
The bass have followed the shad into what are generally their deeper haunts during cold-water periods. You can locate bass in this situation by simply reading a good depth finder, and soon discover the level the shad are holding at in cold weather. They may be locked on the bottom or, actually on warmer days, be somewhat more stratified into shallower layers but will usually still be over deeper water.
The bass follow the shad due to the accumulation of easy prey and their tendency is to form schools that hold in somewhat limited areas. In the pre-spawn period, bass start a movement that is not always governed by the movement of the shad. The one factor that does seem to govern their movement, and the important holding locations in this process, are pathways along structural changes in the lake bottom. The movement may occur along contour lines on the lake bottom or actually along defined channels. The important link in working a pre-spawn pattern is to try to find these so called “staging areas” in the lake. The term simply means that an area has been found where there is a major intersection in the paths traveled by bass in their annual shifts in location toward the shallower spawning areas. This routine has the particular advantages for the fisherman in that often there are considerable numbers of bass in one migratory holding area at one time. It is sometimes possible to actually find such holding areas by seeing the bass on your flasher. This gets a little more complex when you consider that not all bass go to the same level or retreat to deep water in the winter. But even those that hold in somewhat shallower levels during cold water conditions will migrate to shallow water or several shallower levels of holding spots before going into the true shallows in search of nesting areas.
The good news for fishermen is that bass in a pre-spawn staging area are often bass that are likely to feed. I have already indicated that the shift to shallower holding areas is not always linked to the migration of shad, thus you have to think of other options as possible food sources. The prime candidate is the crayfish. They are often found in a wide array of colors even in the same lake. However the most reproducible colors encountered in most species of crayfish are brown, with orange or red, and occasional blue tones. These are therefore good starting points for color selection in getting pre-spawn fish to strike when feeding. The other thing about a crayfish is that they may move fairly rapidly for a very short distance when disturbed, but they don’t go very far at a time. Thus if you are trying to get a hit on a crayfish pattern, you may not want to make it look like it is jet propelled. When you couple these facts with the knowledge that the water temperature is still cold, or the bass would already be in the shallows, then a clear suggestion evolves as to how you should work a lure when fishing for these fish slowly. Of course baits that are ideal for such presentation are the soft plastics such as craw worms, lizards, and probably the most important-jig and pig type baits.
Your game plan should be to keep the bait in the area you feel is the most likely to be representing the strike zone, based on depth, and maybe even data from your fish finder. I made an issue of the value in using a color combination which may mimic a crayfish, but that is of lessening value if you are fishing staging areas of pre-spawn bass that are in deeper water, or in more off color water. Remember the deeper you go the less visual ability a bass has to detect tones. So when there is low light due to depth or water color, one dark color is probably as good as another. On the other hand in clear water, or when the bass are in shallower staging areas the choice of color and tone of that color can make a major difference in the level of your success.
As the water warms the bass tend to move to shallower and shallower staging areas. Remember a bass is a member of the sunfish family. The reason I point this out is that the other various members of the sunfish family also start moving shallower with the impending spring. The smaller members of the sunfish family often spawn considerably later than their larger cousin, the largemouth bass, but their paths of migration toward the shallows will often cross at these staging areas as each shift toward shallower waters. This opens the door for the fisherman to exploit an additional series of colors, which represent these food sources by using chartreuse colored baits. Again you have to remember that you are working fish that have recently been in the coldest water of the year, so their strike zone is usually smaller than it will be in warmer water conditions. So when working bream colors, whether using a crankbait or a spinner, use a deliberately slow retrieve. If the conditions of visibility are poor use a larger size crank, or slow roll a chartreuse spinner with oversized blades.
The very positive part about fishing the pre-spawn fish is that you usually can catch considerable numbers of bass when you find a staging area. The pattern can also hold up for several days, or even weeks if everything else stays constant. However you have to always keep in mind the fact that changes in conditions can also dramatically alter the holding locations of the schools of bass from one day to the other. A frontal passage may cause the fish to get lockjaw even if they are still in the same area. If the front is severe enough to appreciably affect the water temperature, then the bass may actually shift to a deeper holding area. I have also seen the opposite in that a warm rain in the late winter, or early spring will have a dramatic effect as the runoff changes the water temperature. The holding areas then tend to shift toward a shallower pattern even if the air temperature shifts back during a colder series of days. Just as in the fall an influx of warm or cold runoff can more rapidly affect the water temperature,than the impact caused by days of sustained cooler or warmer air temperatures.
I have always convinced myself that pre-spawn bass shifting from deeper to shallower water are catchable fish while those that are dropping back to deeper holding areas are much harder to catch. In fact to actually force a strike it may be necessary to let the jig and pig, or lizard stay in one position for a considerable period of time before slightly working it forward. This type of approach works best any time the bass have a very restricted strike zone and really have to be forced to hit. The bass may not have really moved very far from a staging area, or even may still be on the spot, but their feeding activity has shut down. If the area has produced fish before a frontal passage then shift to a vertical presentation, which is more likely to force a hit. A spoon or Little’George will give you the maximum presentation time in the strike zone, and therefore the best chance of triggering a strike. Even if you can force a hit under these adverse conditions it may be a totally different feel than that you would encounter from a more aggressive fish. Be very sensitive to any slight variation in the way the line or bait feels. You have to set the hook when you feel the slightest pressure, or even the lack of pressure which may indicate that a bass has the bait in his mouth, and not doing much with his “captured” prey but holding it from escape.
As the days lengthen there will be more reliable shifts of the schools of pre-spawn bass toward the spawning area. These bass become more aggressive feeders, not only because of the effect of the increase of the surrounding water temperature on their metabolic rate (their rate of using food stores for energy,) but also because of the related need to feed and store energy for the impending spawn.
The use of a temperature gauge is obviously very important in getting a read of possible environmental motivation for the movement toward the shallows. But also bear in mind that all bass do not follow the same time clock. In other words some are earlier spawners than their cousins. However a period on each lake will occur when most are on the nest in a given area of the lake. This may be several weeks apart if there is a considerable difference in the potential of a given shallow area to warm up. This difference can be caused by factors such as differing times of exposure to daylight warming, or just the opposite where areas are kept cooler for longer periods due to them being subjected to more wave action, and thus a greater mixture of water with varying temperatures than occurs in protected areas. Even in the same area there will be some stragglers, which will spawn on into the early summer. The real constant is that the various staging areas will in general be used by many bass in that part of a lake, even if there are times where more will be holding on the spots than at other times during the migration. The catch is for you to find the depth where the greatest concentration of bass are holding for a given time, and make the presentation needed for getting them to strike.
Make a mental or written note of the time of your success at a given staging area. This should include what you used and how. This will make a good reference as a starting point for pre-spawn bass fishing in future years. On a given day when you have solved the puzzle and caught fish, take the time to sort out (with the use of a good map, preferably a topo) exactly the type of structure where you might have had success, and see if you can envision where that contour might lead to the next holding areas prior to their entrance into the true spawning areas. Things begin to come together when you realize that other similar places on the lake are where you should, and likely will produce the same results under the same conditions. Like many challenges in being successful at bass fishing, you will become better at solving the pre-spawn game plan when you do some off the lake planning before your trip, use your electronics to define temperature and depth, and then put the pieces together for reproducible results.
A final thought about fishing this time of year is that you are catching fish, which soon will be providing the stocking for the future fishery in the lake. So try to keep that in mind as you handle the fish, and hopefully carefully release them so they can go on to the next stage of their life cycle – the spawn.
