Pre Spawn Curveballs and how they will catch you more fish.

In baseball after a few fastballs thrown at a batter, a curve-ball can throw everything off and lead to a mistake, this post is about throwing a curve-ball at Pre-spawn bass and how it can help you catch more fish.

With the spring weather starting to warm the waters, and cold fronts becoming less frequent,  the Pre-Spawn stages are here. The Pre-Spawn stages and patterns are generally initiated when water temperatures average 50 degrees to 55-ish degrees Fahrenheit. The bass will start to move from the deeper winter staging areas to the transitional zones between the winter areas and their spawning areas.

One thing to keep in mind is every body of water is different, a lake with a maximum depth of 50-100 feet is going to be a completely different strategy to target this water temperature than the rivers and creeks I fish, that max out around 15 feet.  Transitional areas are generally 8-25 feet deep depending on the depth of your water body. Bass will spawn in anywhere from 2 feet to 12 feet deep depending on the water level fluctuation of your area and the water temperature swings of the current season. The reason for that is the water at deeper spawning flats stays more consistent than the faster temperature swings from the surface down to 2 feet.

Targeting Pre-Spawn bass is one if the highlights of bass fishing, the bass are extremely aggressive and at their heaviest weight when they are fully stocked from a spring of feeding to get them through their spawning cycle.  Its not uncommon for the same bass to weigh 3 lbs more in the Spawning season than if you caught that same bass in the summer. Most people will target Pre-Spawn bass with crankbaits, spinner baits and Alabama rigs. This tactic of imitating a fast-moving baitfish produces some great numbers of fish and will be consistent until the bigger fish start bedding down. However, everybody and their mother is going to be throwing those three bait styles. The fish this time of year will be heavily pressured because it is one of the best times to get out and catch a trophy fish and quite possibly the fish of a lifetime. And here enters my strategy.

During this phase I will use some crankbaits and spinner baits, and even a jig occasionally, but my main tactic is a finesse approach. I almost always throw a wacky rig, weightless senko and fish it between 6-18 feet deep. To say this bait sinks slowly is an understatement, a weightless senko falls at a very slow rate through the water column and provides a wacky rig action that when fished correctly can be absolutely the most productive bait in your tackle box. In the last two weeks, I have made 3 trips that are about 3-4 hours a piece. I have averaged 10-12 fish per day and so far, landed a 6.5lb and 5lb bass this week alone. Everyone else in this river is throwing fast moving lures targeting big aggressive fish but they forget that the fish see so many crankbaits and so many patterns that they are very skittish of a fast-moving rattling bait.  The river I fish doesn’t have huge schools of shad, it doesn’t have large schools of minnows that are balled up like other reservoirs, these fish attack a slow moving senko much more aggressively than crankbaits and most people don’t even associate fishing a finesse rig this time of year.

 

In conclusion, you will do more for your bass fishing statistics and personal best marks to pay attention to what the fish are being pressured with and vary your approach accordingly, presenting a different style of bait in a different manner with lead to more fish and bigger fish than anyone else out there on the water. This doesn’t mean don’t use what is producing fish for everyone, but when the bite starts shutting down over time, or you realize a size decrease in your fish landed that is the time to change your tactics and land the monsters. Stay safe and don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook for more bass tactics and strategy as well as preparation or the KBF National Championship on Kentucky Lake in March/April

My hunt for the Rooster

I am very fortunate that my job takes me to many unique places. I have stood at the base of the Gulfoss Waterfall in Iceland, Stood on the gravel runways of Greenland, and walked miles and miles on Central American shorelines. These travels have mostly been in Costa Rica, waters known for the elusive and highly sought after Rooster Fish.

I have stayed over 4 months working in Costa Rica over the last 4 years, and have always fished from the shores trying to catch my dream fish. I could have paid for a charter but something about having to battle this fish on his turf, with his rules seemed like more of a challenge. This assumption proved to be accurate as day after day, week after week I would find Needle Fish, Jacks, Trigger and Snapper, with the Rooster remaining but a ghost creeping along shoreline. I have thrown everything from top-waters to spoons, jigs to twitch baits and even a handful of suspending jerk  baits at this ghost, with only other gamefish to prove for it.

This brings us to the interesting part of this story, For the last week the weather was nice but the winds were from the east at 15-25 knots, making shore fishing very difficult, and to give you a better understanding of the environment here, the tide change is about 8.5 feet. In terms of shore fishing, high tide is borderline impossible because the waters in castable distance are rocky and very shallow, but when the tide recedes you can walk out on the rocky points and be within 5 feet of the 20-30 foot drop off the fish cruise for their food. I was lucky enough to get a few days off starting on January 1st, 2017. The morning was cloudless and wind was surprisingly light and never really manifested at any point during the day and I had the tide to my advantage.  I wandered about a mile down the beach to a point that juts out into the bay, a spot where I had caught a 30 lb Jack the year before. I had tied on a Zoom Magnum Fluke in white color, to a 3/4 once jig head for casting distance. And prepared my drag for the hopeful battle that was to follow.

My first cast was perfect, just on the edge of the rock shelf and in a school of bait, I knew for sure i would hit a strike, yet rod jerk after jerk nothing happened. I wound up to make a second cast when my lure hit a rock behind me and went off away from the school of bait and into the blue, I gave my lure two twitches then felt the hit and line slack out, I reeled down and set the hook to feel the rod surge and drag start paying out and I knew I had a good fish, needle fish are very streamlined and fight in bursts, this fish I could feel the tail swimming side to side with my rod movements and knew there were two options, a jack or a rooster. Throughout the fight I was hopeful it was a rooster but in the back of my mind the odds were racing and I knew it was probably another jack, and then as it got closer to the rocks I saw silver, then a stripe, then the feathered spines that are the calling card for this fish’s beauty. I lost my mind! On the end of my line was a fish I had been chasing over the last 4 years, that I caught on my own without a guide and from the rocky shorelines in Costa Rica on artificial lure. As I got my fish grips in its mouth I realized the hook had dislodged from its mouth during the fight and hooked the top of its head. I had caught my lifelong dream by about 1/4 inch of skin on this things head. After the healthy release I got to watch this beautiful fish swim up the shoreline feathered spines above the surface and knew that I had battled this fish on his terms in his waters and had won. But in the end releasing the fish into the water and watching it swim away was almost as good as the hunt and fight the preceded it. Here’s the funny part, I was told by a friend that 2017 was the year of the rosster, and I caught this fish on the first day of 2017.

In conclusion,  I think that’s what we all seek when chasing our fishing dreams, are we really looking for that fish or are we looking for the challenging path and work leading up to catching it. Thank for reading and I hope you enjoyed this story 4 years in the making. the video of this story is below. Enjoy!

Fly fishing Teaser

More to come this spring as I get more trips in. Thank you for watching more videos to come this week!