The water is just starting to warm up and approaching around 50 degrees. This is one of the most aggressive stages of feeding for bass, making it one of the most fun times to catch as well. This is the pre-spawn time. Pre-spawn means that the fish are starting to move from the deeper waters from the winter and migrate to the shallower waters as they warm up. The fish lose a lot of weight in the winter months, and they are now ready to put the feed bags on and bulk up for spawning season.
In the winter months, the bass will go down to deeper water where the temperatures are not as affected by the cold air temps and potential ice on the surface. Since fish are cold blooded, their metabolism slows so much in these water temps that they are only eating just enough to maintain life but not growth or energy to sustain aggressive activity or behavior. This is why fish slow down so much and only take the smallest meals in the wintertime.
The bass species need the warmer temperatures to digest food and expel energy. As the water temperatures rise this time of year, it is their time to catch up on feeding and bulk up to prepare for mating and fighting for their mate.
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Location
Since the bass are coming from deeper waters to shallower waters, my favorite place to target these aggressive predators are the drop-offs. Instead of targeting the decline of depth as we do in the fall, now we pinpoint the incline or way up instead. This merely change the direction in your retrieve, and which baits work best coming up to shallower depths. Finding a weed line, pile of rocks, quick change of depth or structure that allows for an ambush point from predator to prey will be your best bet.
Baits For Spring Bass Fishing
Let’s start with my go-to for early spring: the lipless crank bait. Now this bait will mimic a fast-swimming bait fish, make a lot of noise and disturbance and allow you to fish it at any depth. My recommendation is to begin at the bottom of a drop off.
Let’s create a scenario where the depth is 30’ at the bottom of a slow drop off. The top is at 4’ deep. Meaning that the shoreline is 4’ and about 30-40’ out it drops to 30’. Cast the lipless crank bait to the 30’ depth and let it fall until it stops. Then slowly retrieve the bait all the way to your boat, kayak or dock at the 4’ depth.
The retrieve should just be fast enough to keep it off the bottom to continue the ascend. This will mimic a bait fish swimming to the shallow depths and will likely find the predator fish we are targeting. My second technique with this bait is to position your vessel around the 10-12’ depth and cast perpendicular to the drop off. This will keep your bait around the same depth but cover a lot of the drop off distance halfway up where there should be plenty of bass setting up for food and moving to the shallow waters.
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Time for Fishing
Pre-spawn is one of the more exciting times to fish. We usually take winters off from casting moving baits and this is our chance to shake off the rust and catch some aggressive bass. Make sure you include some good colors on your lipless crank bait as well. I start with red crawfish colors and adjust based on results.
Practice your retrieve, try to keep it away from vegetation and catch some aggressive and hungry bass! Some of the best bass of the year are caught in the spring and fall, so use this opportunity to start the season off with a Bassquatch!
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