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Learning How To CatchPost Spawn Bass1992 Minnesota B.A.S.S. State Champion
One of the most difficult times of the year to catch bass is the post spawn period. This is a transition time for the bass and the bass fisherman. The bass are worn out from the rigors of spawning. Some fishermen are worn out too! From catching fish! During the spawning period the bass are somewhat easy to catch. Most of them are in the shallows. This eliminates ninety percent of the water you have to check to find fish. You only have a small number of tactics you have to try before you pattern the fish. The post spawn period is a whole new ballgame. When you go to the shallows to try for those easy fish that were there last week, you will be lucky to have a ten percent success ratio. Most of the bass have moved out of the shallows. They have begun their transition to early summer locations. This can be a slow transition but it can also seem to happen overnight. Two of the most influential situations that can affect the length of this transition are stress on the fish and the weather. Stress for a bass can come in many different ways. Fishing pressure can make for a stressful time for a bass intent on spawning. A lake that has an abundance of panfish, like perch and sunfish, will be very stressful on spawning bass. The sunfish will gang up on a nesting bass like a pack of wolves. When one sunfish comes close to the nest the bass will chase it away. Then other sunfish will move in to eat the eggs or the fry. Also, during this time of year, the weather patterns can change on a daily basis, if not hourly! This transition to early summer patterns is very unpredictable. The bass have finished spawning and they know that the time has come to go back to their summertime locations. The problem is that the deeper summer locations are still too cold and the food source has not moved to the deeper water yet either. Some fish will go deep anyway just to recuperate, but they will be difficult to catch. Most of the bass will be in the zone between the shallows and the deeper water. The dreaded flats! Weed flats, at this time of year, can be very difficult to fish. The fish are transitioning. That means they are moving. Sometimes that means they are moving all of the time. They just start to cruise the flats. They will be relating to cover, for that is a bass's nature, but they will not stay in one spot for a very long period. They are waiting for the deeper water to warm. They remember that their summer locations were perfect. Just the right temperature, plenty of food and cover, all a four pound bass could ask for! The only problem they had was when a black and blue Gene Larew Salt Craw would occasionally come by for a look around and then some of their relatives would not show up for the evening B.S. sessions! Now that we know what the bass are doing and why, it will be easier to formulate a plan of attack. Let’s head for the lake, hop in my Basscat and catch some fish! We should start by the best spawning area on the lake, in front of that bay in the northwest corner, like the one we talked about last issue. (March 1997) We know that there were a lot of fish in the area because we caught a ton! You can start with a Rapala Rattlin’ Rap and I will throw a buzzbait. We will be fishing fairly fast so I will keep my Motorguide Brute on a high speed. We want to find out if there are any biters around. It may seem strange to be fishing with a fast bait for fish that we know are tired and stressed, but we need to have at least one or two fish tell us (by striking our lure) that there are fish in the area. If we can trigger a strike on a fast horizontal presentation then we can slow down and use some better tactics for these post spawn fish. Since we know that most of the fish are on the flats, we won’t spend any time fishing tight to shore. We will spend our time on the edge of the inside weedline and fishing out, away from shore. These fish could be anywhere on the flats.We will just chunk and wind until we trigger one. There! One just missed my buzzbait! Cast that Rapala just beyond where that fish boiled! You got him! Way to go! We will try this area for a while longer to see if there are any more here. When we catch one more we will change tackle as well as tactics. Now I’ve got one! It’s a small one but at least he’s telling on his brothers and sisters! Come on up front, so you can make quartering casts into the weedline. You should tie on a Rapala Husky Jerk and cast up onto the weedflat. Then use a sweep-sweep-pause retrieve; that should trigger a good fish. I am going to pick up my Quantum TS604F spinning rod with the Energy E7-4 strung with eight pound test Stren Magnathin and throw a one-eighth ounce jig head with a four inch Salty Ringworm. This is one of the best post spawn presentations there is! It has both attracting and triggering qualities. It is also a quiet bait. After seeing 10,000 spinnerbaits in the last two weeks we will need to show them lures they have not seen in a while. The beauty of a jig worm setup is you can fish in the weeds with a finesse type bait and not be hung in the weeds a lot. When you feel the jig worm is stuck on a weed you can snap your wrist and it will pop off the weeds 99 percent of the time. This method will also trigger bites. The bass think their meal is getting away when it pops off the weeds and will strike. Just like that one! Looks like about a two pounder. You’ve got one too? Great! Let’s get a look at him. That one should go about three and a half! Way to go! Hey, I’ve got another one on the jigworm! Who says post spawn fish are hard to catch! Now that we have a pattern going we should be able to catch quite a few. Speaking of patterns, we should talk about pattern fishing. We can do the next time we meet. For now, let’s just catch some fish!
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