Early Spring Bass Fishing – Finding the Fish

We’ve all been there before; it’s somewhere between mid-February and April, depending on your local lake, and the temperatures are just starting to warm up. Maybe the air temperature gets into the high-50’s to low 60’s for a week, and you see that water temp start to creep higher and higher. Maybe all those winter dreams of the first fish have stacked up for months now, and you need to get out and get after it or risk having an aneurism.  When the water temp is in the high 40’s and the bass are just starting to think about moving out of their winter holds, what do you do? Here are a few of my favorite methods for finding a late-winter early-spring bass pattern.

Keep in mind that I mostly fish bodies of water that are less than 20 feet at their deepest, so knowing where to throw in those early spring weeks is a little easier for me than someone out on a big lake or reservoir.

Jerkbaits:

When you’re talking springtime bass fishing, you’d have to be crazy to not talk about a jerkbait. There’s something about the erratic action and stop-and-go retrieve of a jerkbait than can entice a lethargic, freezing cold bass to swim up and take a nibble. Personally, this isn’t my favorite method of fishing in cold water, but sometimes when nothing else will get it done, the jerkbait will. My favorite to throw regularly is the Rapala X-Rap in a Moss Back Shiner pattern. It does a good job representing a bluegill or other baitfish, and the underbelly has the shine to get the job done in murky water. Also, it goes without saying that at around $10USD, the price is right on this lure. I have found that it excels particularly in murky water with the sun out so that the rips of the bait get a nice roll and lots of reflective action. One of these days I’ll pony up and buy myself a Megabass Vision 110, but hey, the average chap is likely hard pressed to drop $25USD on a single lure.

Finesse Squarebill Crankbaits:

This is one of my primary confidence baits for cold water when I just want to feel something on my line. I stumbled upon this technique by total accident when I brought the wrong box with me on a cold spring day of fishing and had no moving baits, save for a size 1 Strike King KVD HC silent crankbait in Chartreuse Sexy Shad. I tied it onto a spinning combo and immediately hooked into some decent little slab crappie, which gave me the confidence to keep throwing the bait around cover for the rest of the day. After a few buck males hit the tiny squarebill that day, giving me my first success of the year, I never leave home without it. I’ve found the most success with this bait retrieving it in a highly erratic manner, reeling slow and burning the bait in different patterns, which I switch up on every cast. Find some shallow rocks or hard bottom and let ‘er rip. It doesn’t matter what brand you use, the important thing is to use small baits with a varied retrieve. On those days when the sun blares high in the sky for a full day early in the year, and that cover heats up a bit and the fish hold on it, the finesse squarebill is always a good call.

Lipless Crankbaits:

The lipless is one of my favorite baits to throw, regardless of water temp or time of year, but the early spring through the post-spawn is easily the most productive time to throw it. I usually throw something with chartreuse and red, and typically with rattles. I will frequently have both the silent finesse crankbait and the lipless tied on separate rods at the same time, alternating between burning the lipless and then slow rolling the squarebill through the same area. It seems to me like one of the two will usually hit if the bass are biting. One of my favorites to run with is the Red Eye Shad Tungsten 2-Tap. It has a unique rattle sound that I’m a huge fan of, and I usually keep three or four of ‘em in my cranking box at all times.

Finding Fish in Early Spring:

You’ll likely have noticed that the three baits I mentioned are moving baits, and there is a reason for that. I’ve found that I prefer to power-fish in the springtime to cover as much water as possible, particularly in the small bodies of water I usually find myself fishing.

When I fish the ponds around me, I’ll usually find the depth, whether that be by using my anchor line or simply just pushing a paddle into the water until I hit bottom, and then find the transition point between the shallows along the shore, and whatever drop-off in depth there may be further offshore. Then, using the different baits I have tied on, I’ll try to canvas the whole drop-off transition area with all of the baits I have tied on, typically with that one-two lipless-squarebill combo I spoke of earlier.

Think of the transition as a flight of stairs; the highest step (closest to the shore) I’ll likely burn with a lipless; the second step (a few feet further out to deep water) I’ll fish with a jerkbait; the third step (the deepest I’ll go) I’ll try and work over with a deeper-diving squarebill. Fishing in this fashion will allow me to cover the transitions where the fish will start to move up, and give me a better chance of landing one when the water is still biting-cold.

This may go without saying, but if you find cover, throw to it. Cover that’s hanging out in slightly deeper water should be thrown to even more, and if you can identity brush piles or rock slabs underwater, don’t hesitate to work those over too.