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Be Flexible for Pre-Spawn Bass

The vast majority of bass anglers have their best day of the year sometime between late January and early April. This is the period when bass begin to move shallower, responding to a complex set of environmental and biological changes: warming water that increases their metabolism and appetite, the movement of many forage fish to shallower water, the desire of bass to feed up in preparation for the spawn and, finally, the need the bass have to find shallow areas to build their spawning beds.

At some point during this period, the bass will probably be in the right place and the right mood to strike your “confidence” bait. The other side of the coin, however, is that because the bass are moving, they may not be where you assume they are.

So, while you can have great fishing when the bass are attacking your favorite bait fished the way you most like to fish, on most days you’ll catch more fish if you are flexible in your approach.

FINDING THE FISH

The first thing a bass angler should do is figure out where the bass are. Water temperature is a critical piece of information. A rough rule of thumb is that when water temperatures are 48 degrees or lower, most of the bass will be holding in winter patterns.

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