Post-Rain Bass Fishing
Spring 2018
Water Temp: 53F
Visibility: Chocolate Milk
Hours Fished: 3:00pm-6:30pm
Primary Techniques: Crankbaits, Lipless Crankbaits, Ned Rig
I took to the water around 3:00pm on Friday, looking to go get my hands on some pre-spawn bass. The whole week had been the first of the year to feature temperatures consistently over 55 degrees, with one day hitting the low 70’s. The full moon was only two days away, so I found myself in a bit of a tasty window for some largemouth action. The entirety of the previous night and most of the day until I went out had been a near torrential downpour, so the water was blown out beyond belief.
The previous weekend of fishing saw me learn a few things about the pond I had decided to fish again, which I’ll call “Pond X”.
· First off, the baitfish had moved into the shallows and were actively striking moving baits. I learned this by hooking 3 crappie on a tiny Strike King silent crankbait in a white and chartreuse color.
· Secondly, the buck males were moving shallow to spawn. Every fish I landed the previous weekend had come from three feet of water or less, and let’s just say the size of fish wasn’t exactly exhilarating.
· Finally, the fish were not hitting soft plastics. Countless tosses of a shaky heads and ned rigs yielded no results, let alone a nibble.
With this information in mind, I launched the kayak and moved to my first spot.
Spot 1 – Shallow Laydown: Shallow Squarebill Crankbait and Jig
The first spot I dropped anchor and cast to was an area surrounding a half-submerged maple tree that had fallen some time ago. To one side of the laydown was a very shallow muddy flat, and to the other was a stretch of rip-rap rocks extending about 40 yards. I anchored down directly off the tree about 15 yards, and made casts to the laydown with a jig, fishing slow hops in the strike zone and then burning it back. The jig didn’t look to be getting much action, so I turned to the lipless and burned it across the rip-rap, hoping to elicit a reaction strike from a bass moving up to warm itself. After roughly 30 casts and not so much as a nibble, I decided to pick up and move to the next laydown.
Spot 2 – Deeper Laydown: Weightless Stick Bait and Lipless Crankbait
Spot two was a slightly deeper laydown as the tree had fallen much further into the pond. I’d had luck off it the previous weekend on that same small chartreuse and white squarebill, but I wanted to try something different. I tossed a Yum Dinger around in the branches for a few casts, but eventually tied on a Red-Eye Shad 2-Tap lipless in the same color pattern as the squarebill. I was testing out my brand new cranking combo, a Abu Garcia REVO X Gen 4 casting reel in a 5.4:1 ratio paired with a Lew’s Fritts Perfect Crankbait rod in a medium power, moderate action configuration. My first cast with the heavier bait resulted in a small backlash, which I set about untangling. Not a second after I had the nest undone did I feel the rod load up with a big fish on, and drag started ripping off my reel. I adjusted the tension and fought the fish for a minute or so, as she pulled under the kayak and forced me into some acrobatic kayak bassin’ maneuvers. I did eventually land her, and weighed her in at just a hair under 3lbs.
Well, the old heart was pumpin’ and the hands were just a bit shaky after that one. I had made the cast into just about 5 feet of water, which isn’t much less than the deepest water in Pond X. Because of the lack of information on depth or bottom contour and makeup, I didn’t really have any good information to go off for the rest of my day. All I had been able to ascertain to that point was that the fish weren’t interested in slow moving baits, and that white and chartreuse seemed to be their color of choice. The lipless had rattles, which I figured would improve my chances of getting a reaction in the post-rain chocolate-milk water clarity, so I decided to keep the lipless tied on and keep moving around the pond.
The Rest of the Day – Lipless Crankbait
I spent the rest of the day with the anchor up, letting the light breeze take me where it pleased. Even though the day prior to when I went out had been nothing but rain and generally stormy conditions, the wind was now nowhere to be found, seemingly disappearing entirely. A calm fog settled over the pond, and I felt truly alone on the water – just me and the bass.
I hooked another keeper sized bass and two other small males, burning the lipless around cover and ripping it out of the grass that has started to form in the ponds around here. They seemed to be hitting more like wet socks than aggressive feeding fish, which leads me to believe that it’ll be a few weeks still until the bass fishing truly blows up in the North East. When I go out next, which will hopefully be soon, the lipless in that same charmeuse and white pattern will likely be the first thing I throw. We’ll see it the reaction bite is still hot.