2025 Spring Fishing

Figured since you can fish bass in WI I’d start this up. I probably won’t be able to get out there til next week but I’ll be messing around over there soon. Talk about the bite here if you do get out.

Whats your go to early cold water bass tactics ?

Bearcat89 wrote:

Whats your go to early cold water <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>bass tactics ?

Self admittedly, I suck early spring. We’ve never been able to fish it until WI went to C and R before the season opened so I just don’t have much time on the water in that stage of the year. I struggle when fish aren’t on shallow cover or there aren’t weed beds/weedlines to fish. So early spring is tough for me. However I’ve been doing a lot of reading and watching on early coldwater spring bass, and Ive found the common areas of focus are main lake points and covering water. Once you find them they are usually schooled up until they start moving up shallower. But basically the consensus was they stay deeper near points that are close to spawning grounds, then move to secondary points shallower, then the spawning grounds.

So that will be my focus, using chatterbaits, jerkbaits, lipless cranks, blade baits, and paddletails and underspins to cover water, until they start moving up. We’ll see if it works.

mahtofire14 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Bearcat89 wrote:</div>
Whats your go to early cold water <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>bass tactics ?

Self admittedly, I suck early spring. We’ve never been able to fish it until WI went to C and R before the season opened. I struggle when fish aren’t on shallow cover or there aren’t weed beds/weedlines to fish. So early spring is tough for me. However I’ve been doing a lot of reading and watching for early coldwater spring bass, and Ive found the common areas of focus are main lake points and covering water. Once you find them they are usually schooled up until they start moving up shallower. But basically the consensus was they stay deeper near points that are close to spawning grounds, then move to secondary points shallower, then the spawning grounds.

So that will be my focus, using chatterbaits, lipless cranks, blade baits, and paddletails and underspins to cover water, until they start moving up. We’ll see if it works.

I know on a local lake that both smallies and largemouths hang right at the first break in shoreline water and absolutely murder my crappies baits. The crappies like to hang at that break too along with pike and catfish so I can be a crap shoot what’s going to hit, but I can say crappie, smallie, lm, cat then pike in that order. And that break is from three to about 5 1/2 feet, but its an abrupt, sharp drop.

I’ve also struggled mightily in very early spring when the water is super cold.

They are warm water species as cold blooded fish so they are often still kind of hibernating in winter mode until there are signs of warmth.

I think mahto is on the right track though. They’re likely still out deeper in the wintering holes and probably tough to entice a strike.

And of course it turns back to winter when I bring the boat back home…..

Would not be the end of the world if we had a C&R season here too, bass are tough to catch in cold water. I catch them early season crappie fishing, they like stuff smaller, slower and suspended.

I found a smaller lake in WI that looks similar to a reservoir style lake with a lot of creek arm jutting out from the main lake. I’m gonna check that out soon and see if the bass act like I think they will and stack up in those creek arms once it starts warming up.

I spent 8 hours on Wednesday graphing rock points on Big Stone. I would focus where the main break dips off into the basin. 6 to 8 fow.
I probably have around 30 waypoints and plan on hitting it up this upcoming Saturday.
The plan run and gun to each waypoint till I come in contact with a good size school.
The 3 things I will be using.
Jerk bait, balsa crank bait (Shad rap) and a Neko rig.