Catching Bass Between Seasons

The good spring fishing you enjoyed in the shallows has diminished. Summer is approaching rapidly, but the bass you caught a month ago have seemingly disappeared. You checked some of your summer hotspots, and they weren’t much better. What happened to the fish?

In all likelihood, the bass are somewhere in between, abandoning nesting areas and headed for summer haunts. It’s a period when finding fish can be difficult, but it doesn’t mean you should postpone your next outing.

Locate the migration route, and you may hit the mother lode. Bass are beginning to shake off the spawning funk, school and feed ravenously again. When you find them, you could easily enjoy some of the best action of the year.

Now don’t commit the mistake that a lot of anglers make by automatically assuming the fish have raced for deep water or moved several hundred yards from their bedding areas. They may not be as shallow as they were a month ago, but they probably haven’t gone far, especially immediately after the spawn.

Under normal situations, fish move to the first depth change or edge closest to the spawning areas and slowly work their way out to the summer spots. The depth change can be very subtle, but in man-made waters, it usually consists of a ditch, creek or bottom depression that leads to main-lake points or river ledges.

It’s not as easy to pinpoint migration routes on natural lakes because the structure and depth changes are more subtle. The bass are more likely to follow changes in bottom content, such as where gravel meets sand or marl meets sand. It could be a weed edge or holes in a large weed flat. But instead of being on the outside where they will be during summer, they’ll bunch up in an area around sandy openings or something that has definition within that weedy flat.

One of the first things I look for in reservoirs this time of year is current. Bass are lured to current immediately after the spawn, so the points closest to the spawning areas are good places to start.

Fluctuating water can have a major impact on bass location during this period. If the water is coming up, they tend to move up to the shallows and may even return to the spawning flats. Remember, after the bass spawn, fish like bluegills move in to spawn, so those fry become food sources for hungry bass.

If the water is falling, bass make a more dramatic move to the points. This is probably the ideal scenario because they will get on the upcurrent side of those points and face into the current, waiting for balls of bait to drift over them.

Of course, the points don’t have to be perfect. They can be long, slow-tapering points. They don’t have to have a lot of cover either. I’ve caught them on slick clay, sand or gravel points.
Bass are focused on feeding and roam in packs. They’re primarily after baitfish, which can be recently hatched shad, white perch or shore minnows. When you find them, it’s possible to catch 10 on 10 casts. That’s why I use a lot of crankbaits and topwaters during this transitional period. Topwaters are great choices for calling out the fish, which tells you where those schools are holding, especially in clear water.

I use crankbaits to help me cover water quickly and will switch to topwaters when I get in an area where I think they’re holding. If I get fish to slap at a topwater, I know to slow down and work that area thoroughly.

Look for fish to pull shallower on the points or to the inside edges of the subtle breaklines during early morning or late evening, which is a great time to be on the water this time of year.

When you find them, you’ll agree with me that the transitional period isn’t such a bad time to be fishing.