Post Spawn Blues or Blast?

YEA I know it’s tourny time for some but there has got to be many of you guys who still fish for the fun of it, and who will still be willing to share some information… Right!?

Here is my current experience.
For me it’s a mixed bag. I have not seen many bass that still have spawn in them so I am guessing that we are in the post spawn time. I have not been able to find a consistant pattern. I will be able to find fish here and there but not much for consistancy. Wood along routs to and from the spawn area have been my best places but even those have been sporatic at best.
Will anyone share on how long it tends to be before the fish find there summer haunts?
Anyone finding any kind of consistant pattern?
ps. Thanks for sharing!

Post Spawn blues are a myth. The problem is that when fish stage to recoop they often do it away from visible structure so many people can’t figure them out.
Do this. find an area that you know bass spawn in. Follow that out to the first deeper water area. From there fish the edge in on the flat. They will be there and the ones close to the edge but still holding on the flat will be there to feed and head back to the deeper area when done. This is where you will intersect them.
jc

Hey JC,
Thanks, It makes sense but when your as dumb as me you don’t think that way.
A tip, (I guess a better way of thinking), that will help me instanly.
Thanks-
I would like to point out how painless that seemed to be for JC and he gave no “honey holes” away. BUT it is just the type of info I and bet others can use to become better catcher-man.

Here’s my two cents, I have usually been able to find them on main to secondary river points (depending on water level) with some slack water on them. Goes to what Jeremy said, usually has some deeper water close by and what I have found also current close by. I have usually found my best sucess on the “seams” between the current and slack water. I feel they are on there way back to the regular summer haunts but of course some end up staying put and you can find them on main river points thru-out the summer months. Adding to what Jeremy said, the best points are leading into flats that would be good for spawning.

Now as far as baits go, I got my eyes opened to the power of a pop’r last year! I saw days were those post spawn fish hit that thing all day long even on blue bird days. Now I know that we have all read that in Bassmaster but until last year I never saw it actually work.

I grabbed a couple fish off of beds yesterday the males and female were doing such a hard dance the turbulence on the top of the water gave them away. Two years in a row June tourneys on 9 have been won off of beds. A tourney team from Last Saturday told me he was fishing fish locked on beds, and a second said the fish would pop in and spook easy like they hadn’t even settled on the beds yet???

Yet many areas are are like the Haywood said vacated . Same deal each year. One common thread…when the shiners,(baitfish) left or moved the beds emptied… where the baitfish still are the fish still appear to stay on or very close to the beds?????

I can tell you within hours or certainly within a day when an area I fish yearly is going to go dead… the baitfish are jumping out of the water, even spooking when your line passes over them and then all of a sudden nothing and within hours and definitely the next day all but the resident fish… Bass Walleye and Northern all disappear and stop biting… like you turned off a switch. The bedding bass are gone off the beds. Go up or down the river and fish the bedding areas with the bait fish still there and the bass seem to be still on the beds.

So since I’m so horrible at finding those fish that are staged out of the spawning area in the edge of or in the deeper water like Jeremy is talking about I just keep on running till I see baitfish, feeding activity and then fish locked on beds… then back off a little to the surrounding structure and bang. When this doesn’t work… actually much later in June most times, then the bass seem to be where I expect to find them most of the summer. Hard to do when your not on the water all the time, but that way I don’t seem to have the work so hard on the transitioning fish. For some reason the fish seem to stay in beds longer in some areas on Pool 8 and 10 than on pool 9… Power plant???? Anyway don’t give up on the bedding bass yet. A lot of the bass I was on just left their prespawn locations 5 days ago. Expected them to disappear right when full moon arrived but they stayed a little longer. There are a couple of spots on 9 that the fish almost always postspawn stage, so I do fish there because I am confident they are there, and with a few pops in the morning on a few casts with deep squarebilled minnow immitators they give themselves away .

But I’m with Jeremy with the no funk thing… maybe not so congregated, maybe less aggressive when not on beds till later on in the early summer, but almost everyday they are sizzling somewhere.

Right now especially in areas where the beds were very shallow and with the dirty water and the high sun I get a lot of bass only 10 – 25 feet from the beds casting for northern in no more than 4 -6 feet of water… just about where sun penetration line is… as the water clears I imagine they will move quickly to the postspawn staging area and depths Jeremy is talking about.

The spawn is not over down here yet. We had an excellent tourny on 18 last weekend and the fish I was on have not spawned. We really had a great day . It took 88″ to win.(5 fish) I love it when the River is Smokin!

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The bedding bass are gone off the beds. Go up or down the river and fish the bedding areas with the bait fish still there and the bass seem to be still on the beds.

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Ecklr- Are you saying that buck bass guarding the eggs/ fry will abandon the hatch because there are no baitfish in the area? I always thought the fish guarding the nests become weak and tired because the only thing on their minds is protecting the hatch, and they are not too concerned about much else…including eating. I guess I have to believe they must eat sometime, but I would never guess they would abandon the nest for food…

Haywood- I believe the fish which do the guarding are tired and worn down for a short period of time following the spawn…but I catch beat up fish every year immediately following the spawn so I know they still bite. As far as where to look for them, I prefer “Junk Fishing” as Daivd Dudley would put it. That means by the end of the day you’ll have 14 rods with different baits on your front deck and would have covered LOTS of water picking up a fish here and there throughout the day with no real obvious pattern. I keep moving and changing things up.

Spinner Dave.
We had a tourney last Sunday of which most had between 16 and 20lbs.. All of them had already dropped and were females. All of them were torn up and seemed to have been recooping for a few days but not long.
jc

In three areas in particular that seems to be exactly the case. Food gone fish gone…too much of a coincidence to happen the same way year after year in a 24 hour period…I THINK . But I suppose the the fish moving off the beds and the baitfish disappearing at the same time might just be a natural thing that happens calender wise at the same time each year but the dates sometimes are a week to a week and a half one way or the other so water temp , etc obviously is part of the equation too… Always catch nice northern and walleye in the same place and they dissappear the same time the food does also. But hey I go 1/4 of mile away as the crow flies and 3/4 of a mile as the boat path runs to get there and the baitfish are popping and I can see numbers of bass still near the beds. Didn’t check today because we were smashing whitebass. So Jeremy mot one female with eggs??? That has to be more than just where they are caught so maybe I’m catching and seeing scragglers???

Are they baitfish or bass fry? Maybe the bass are protecting and the others eating? That might explain why when the fry are gone the fish go too? Just a thought.

Not sure what is going on down there….but bass will not abandon a nest to chase bait. Maybe to chase it out of the area…but thats all. If the nest is successful…the male will guard the fry. Sometimes as long as 3 weeks.

One other thing….just cause a bass is big….does not mean it is a female. I have no idea how guys can tell the sex of a bass just by looking at it. One can assume that if it is over 5 pounds…it is a female. But….I have caught my fair share of 5 pound male largemouths.That is of course….that the biologists are correct….and only male bass guard the nest.

I do not think that the baitfish leave and thus the bass leave, I believe that you have found an area that it for some reason ahead of other areas close by. The baitfish and the bass are both on a biological/season schedule and the fish you are talking about are ahead. Just figure out what about these spots/fish is different and this will be good for you. Apply this knowledge next year, or even this year and you have a “pattern” figured out. Today I caught prespawn/spawn/post spawn fish on pool 14. I do think on the River most bass spawn concurrently, but not all at the same time. Look at the bright side, soon forage will be plentiful and the bite will turn tough. LOL– rob

Who to determine the sex of a bass. Well, There are typically 2 methods that will give it away of which neither are 100% accurate however statistically you can accurately identify a majority. First take for instance that a fish needs to be about a pound – pound and a half to actually do the deal. Those little 8 – 10 inch fish are just santas little helpers so to speak reacting to instinctual response. The best time is obviously prespawn where the female bass have distended bellies and the vent is red and protruding. It you give them a gentle squeeze you will actually release some of the eggs. Once the spawn is done and you inspect the same area you will see that the vent on 2 – 4 lb largemouth is about as big at a nickel. The next thing that gives it away is that the area around the vent on the underbelly are typically round in males and oval in females. If you have both the nickel sized swollen red vent and an oval types scales area you can assume with “fairly” high accuracy that the fish is a female. If the area is round and the vent is about the size of a dime you can assume the fish is a male. I will qualify this as not being an exact science but this is as close as you can come without putting a fillet knife in one.

I will say that it is obscenely obvious when looking at a female bass that has not dropped her eggs yet so at very least one can assume all things being equal that all the fish weighed in at the last tournament could not have been males. 5lb males..
Jc

Jeremy,

Here I was sticking my finger up them…..to see if they would moan! I guess your method is not only better….but cleaner!

Plus….You ain’t the first non-believer in the 5 pound males….in Mn. They are few and far between. On Tonka…most males seem to top out at a little over 4 pounds.

Baitfish being spit up and left in livewell are 1.5 – 2.5 inch emerald shiner.. or as in a past discussion some species in that family. Whitebass are leaving the same in our boat last two days… but with so many northern and walleye held in the area by the shiners the bass eggs/frey might be getting slaughtered too… so maybe you hit it right on the head. No frey left to protect???

I caught a precent decent largemouth today and I knew it was a spawned out female because when I lipped her she just moaned; “not tonight”, and rolled over.

That’s funny right there…