Spring time Bass fishing is a Magical time. You can catch numbers and you can catch your personal best (PB). Once the water temperature Creeps into the 60’s the fishing starts to really pick up.
Pre Spawn: The fish on Lake Lanier come out of the deep ditches and stage on humps and main lake points and feed like crazy to get ready and have enough nutrients for the spawn. I have talked about this bait before but during the Pre Spawn I love to fish a Tube paired with a Goby Jig head. Be prepared to get snagged and snagged a lot. You will need to buy more than one pack for sure. But you will catch some absolute Giant Spotted Bass using this bait. Just drag it on the bottom like you would your traditional jig or worm. For more on how to use that bait watch this video from my youtube channel and hopefully it will shed some more light on this technique.
So during the spawning time of the year (especially on Lake Lanier) you will find that different areas of the lake will have different things going on. On Lake Lanier the fish will start spawning up north sooner than they will down south. Water temp. is everything this time of year. So as you are moving around you will find different areas that tend to hold higher water temps and also more fish of course. This time of year you have to be able to adapt. The weather is all over the place and you have to change with the conditions. During the spring you can catch them on a variety of baits. I have already shed some light on how I catch fish on the bed.
So on some days if the wind is kicked up or you have some over cast skies you can absolutely jack them on spinner baits or top water baits. I know everyone has their favorite top water bait but one that I found a lot of success with was whopper plopper from river to sea. This thing flat out catches them.
On days where the sun is out and you don’t have a lot of wind then you can throw your traditional shaky head in a 1/4oz. and get to work. I like to pair this with a green pumpkin worm almost anywhere in the country. This color and combo just straight up work. If you find that you are getting a lot fo short strikes you may want to add some scent or scent/color and use this towards the head of the lure so it attracts them to hook portion of the bait.
Now you are probably thinking to yourself well that is great but where am I supposed to fish. Well during the spawning time of the year the fish are making their way to the banks. You will work long stretches of banks with a hard bottom and fish with the lure that best fits the conditions. You are going to find that when they are in spawning mode that you are going to get a lot of short strikes. During this time of the year the fish are not biting because they want to eat.
They are biting because they are aggressively protecting their beds. You are going to weed through lots of smaller male bass. But at any moment you need to be ready because that next hook set could be the fish of a lifetime. As you are working these banks keep your eyes open for things like grass, logs, or anything else that bass may bed by. Also remember the bigger females may be waiting out a little deeper in those same areas while the males do all the work (story of our lives). So consider casting out deeper on the other side of the bait for those bigger females waiting to make this move up.
