Consistently struggle in Spring

My home water is the big ole Green Bay and I consistently struggle to catch God’s fish for all men to catch except me.. the smallmouth bass. these little buggers have not been good to me and it appears my friend who went to the insane asylum with muskies has spread his curse to me.

Seriously though been fishing the brown ones for a little under a decade and fishing them from my boat has gotten consistently harder since the bay was above pool a couple years ago. My presentation is the same either a tube on bottom, hair jig, ripping jerkbaits, etc. I’ve blanked more days this year than in years past and at this point I think it’s just me in a rut. I do the same role into new spots from a far then sweep thru the area at distance. Im not seeing large schools up shallow like I used to and burned thru a lot of spots this weekend. All I put together this weekend with the flat calm that probably didn’t help was a half a dozen small ones trying to chase down a jerk bait. Summer and fall will show up and then I’ll be catching them easily but why the heck can’t I get them in the spring?

They most likely aren’t actually schooled up in the spring. You may have been coming across large groups on beds. Typically in the spring they are roaming around rocks or transition areas waiting to spawn. I would be looking for beds or fishing the shallowest rocks you can find. I’m talking like 1-3 FOW. Don’t sleep on a paddletail swimbait either.

My two favorite prespawn baits are jerkbaits and swim baits.

Look for fish on flats less than 10’ and as Mahto mentioned look for roaming fish not schooled up fish. The closer you get to spawning temps the shallower I look.
Once the spawn hits I love a drop shot casted past the bed and drug into the bed.

I was lucky to fish Lake St Clair a few years ago in the presoawn time frame. Those fish were all in 6 to 10’ of water. A swim bait slow rolled on the bottom or close to bottom was killer.

I fish waters that cycle and even freeze out, many may lakes have few or no lunkers at all. Revo you are fishing Green Bay, if you figure out a few things there you are set! Good Luck