late spring/early summer tactics

Not sure if anyone was or is bass fishing yet. Just thought I’d start a thread so people can add on what they are using, depths, etc to target and catch (or not catch) bass as the season progresses.

I was targeting largemouth locally yesterday morning and caught some. They are definitely still prespawn but might start doing their thing pretty soon because the water temp was 61 when I quit around 11. No particular tactic seemed to do better than the other. I caught fish on a jerk bait, spinnerbait, and a tube in shallow and mid depth.

One item I did notice was that the weeds seem thicker than usual for mid May. I’m sure the fake winter played a role in that.

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I was targeting largemouth yesterday. I saw guys super shallow struggling. I was doing very well in whatever tall weeds you could find in 9-13 FOW. I was running a spinner bait and as soon as you would find a nice group of cabbage you would hook a good one. Spot lock and pick it apart with a slower presentation and pickup a few more. Lots in the 2-3lb range. I would agree pre spawn. Warmest temps i saw was 57.

Got a bunch, mostly smallish. Spinners got them in a shallow bay but all of those were very small. Senkos got larger stuff in about 13′. Beautiful day to get back into the largie thing.

Due to other things going on I was only able to get out in the boat for an hour in the morning on Sullivan and less than an hour in the evening on Platte. In the morning I lost a couple of quality bass on back-to-back casts in 4′ of water. I landed 7 between one and two and half pounds mostly on a Shower Blow topwater in moving water. In the evening, I got a 4lber super shallow on a buzzbait/Toadz and a 1lb fish on the Shower Blows. A couple of years ago I would have smoked ’em where I was on Platte, fricken winter kill 22/23.

Had best luck on a chatter bait in 5 fow or less. Pike love em , too. Only got bit off once. Hazy day. Had to go early before Mother’s Day brunch. My daughter was the server. Kinda funny. She got a good tip.

I got to the area on Sullivan I started on Saturday morning at 6:30 pm on Sunday and the cupboards were bare this time. I moved about an 1/8th of a mile and drifted weed flat from 1-3′ of water picking off an occasional fish on a small spinnerbait and small buzzbait. I figured I could do better elsewhere, but didn’t so for the final half hour of light I went back and drifted the flat again only getting one bass and pike. I got 9 bass for the trip and 5 pike. I have no clue what kind of pressure this area of lake got on Saturday and Sunday. I think the fish were there, but just not very active tonight. The lack of pike bites is the clue that the fish were off. Temps were 61-64. I also only threw moving baits, except for a few casts with a Texas-rigged craw tube at my first stop. The biggest bass was maybe 2 lbs.

We fished for bass yesterday since we were limited out on walleyes.

Fished shallow flat that had sand, gravel and rock scattered through out it. Lots of reeds in this area. Everything was dead and broke off below the surface.
Water depth was 2 to 4 fow.
90% of the fish came on a tube. With all the old reeds we had to Texas rig them or you would get hung up all the time.
Between the two of us we caught roughly 50 fish both small mouth and large mouth.
Most were 1 to 2 lbs. we caught a handful of 3 lbers and a handful of 4 lbers.

2 of the bigger small mouths we caught came off beds already.

Water temp in this area was 61 degrees however we fished a couple rock points on the other side of the lake and the water temp there was 56 degrees.

My dad with one of the bigger smallmouth for the day.

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The bass were very spooky for me any noise they were gone. Found a few around the docks on Saturday we did well with 1/4 jig and a paddle tail. Wife used a wacky not as many but better size. The pike kept snapping me off little guys. On Sunday it really slowed down for us. We tried shallow first then out to about 8 FOW chatter bait seemed to do the best even tried a few smaller skirted bass jig with a plastic kinda early but the pike took 2 and I quit those. Agree we are pre spawn patterns. I should have went deeper on the weed edges.

Hit a smaller lake tonight and saw 64 for water temps. Bigger fish were just off spawning flats and smaller fish were on them. Im curious if the fish on this lake are between spawn and post spawn. Spinner bait got the most action.

I found fish last night in 2′ of water or less. I tried 6′ in the cut-off reeds to start and worked shallower after a fruitless 30 minutes of fishing. A Texas-rigged Houdini colored Turbo FattyZ was the deal in that thick shallow cover. I didn’t get a single hit on topwater. My biggest fish was 19″. I got another one that was probably three pounds and lost one between 3 and 4. I got several between 15 and 16. I caught 12 bass in two and a half hours. I finally got a fish on a crawtube. A 2 1/2 at the end of the night. I should have thought to pull that craw tube out sooner. I would have gotten more fish. I’m pretty sure I was getting bedders and had a number of bites that didn’t hook up that I should have followed up with the crawtube.

Was out Saturday. It was mostly smaller bass with a couple nicer ones including a 21” smallmouth. We used Ned rigs and a vmc bucktail tipped with a leech. Water temp started at about 56 and got to 58 around noon.

Fished bass both Sat and Sunday. Caught a fair amount of smaller buck bass up shallow in and near the reeds. All the shallow fish came on a wacky rigged stick worm. pushed out to 5-7 ft of water and caught a fair amount on Jerk baits and chatterbaits. Saw a few fish Locked tight to beds. I think the spawn will happen soon and fast around this area. Water temps this morning were 62-66 Deg. That’s getting close to prime temps.

My favorite technique this time of year is to find the spawning areas for shiners. Once you find these areas the fish won’t be far behind and very concentrated. The last two mornings I’ve boated nearly 100 bass. With eight of those being over 20in. Really any type of bait that mimics a shiner is killer right now. Biggest was 21.25″

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fishthumper wrote:

I think the spawn will happen soon and fast around this area. Water temps this morning were 62-66 Deg. That’s getting close to prime temps.

I think so too. Especially looking at the air temps on Fri/Sat, which may be 80+ degrees for the southern portion of the state.

Nice job Joe, I saw you on Angling Buzz again with the buzz bite report from Alexandria.

Thanks, my kids are getting a bit older now so I have way more time to fish and do reports!

Before I used to work 40hrs+ a week, guided just as much if not more and had to keep the kids and wife happy. It felt like 4 jobs at once.

Now I guide full time in the summer and during the school year I teach at Alexandria College and I’m their fishing coach. It’s been a good change. I actually get to fish for fun once in awhile now.

Joe Scegura wrote:

Thanks, my kids are getting a bit older now so I have way more time to fish! Before I worked 40hrs a week, guided just as much if not more and had to keep the kids and wife happy. It felt like 4 jobs at once.

Now I guide full time in the summer and I teach at Alexandria College and I’m their fishing coach during the school year. It’s been a good change. I actually get to fish for fun once in awhile now.

Right on, good to see you posting again Joe!

This past week Houdini colored Turbo FattyZ in 1′ to 4′ in old and emerging rice beds was the main deal for me. Shiners were spawning and that is what I think that H color imitates. I also caught a few on spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, frogs, and knock-off Senko’s. Water temps in the mid 60’s by Saturday. I only got a few 3lbers. I got about even numbers of 1lb and 2lb fish. I don’t think I quite got to 100 bass for the week, which is actually quite sad. In the past, this would have been the week where I had a great shot at a hundred-bass day. I didn’t locate the fish quickly enough to cash in on the shiner spawn this year.

Wacky worm got the males going yesterday, but the females were tougher to move. We tried a few different tactics on the deeper 12 ft weed edge but only had a couple walleye to hit no bass. We salvaged the day crappie fishing.

The weather this week might halt the reproductive process. I see highs near 65 degrees or lower and several days of rain in the next week.

The smallmouth in Mille Lacs were not spawning or on beds yet where I was yesterday. It was 58.5 degrees when I left on the east side.

FINALLY getting out this Thursday. Hitting a lake that I have done well on up shallow in tournaments. With water temps they should be up there and with the water levels up they should actually be more accessible again.

Golf has been taking up too much of my time lately. Time to lean on some big ones. Glad to see some of you getting on them.

I was on a bigger lake but was already mid 60s. Fish seemed to be closer to post spawn. Nothing huge but some nice ones on points just off of shallow bays.

A rougher weekend for me as well. Small males near the docks so we moved out 4-8 FOW using spinnerbaits and chatter baits got a few. Any females we got were still full of eggs the spawn has not happened yet and the weather will slow that down soon. As Bass Pundit said this is usually the 2 weeks of excellent number days but barely scratched 25 bass per day. Did get a nice 26 walleye and the wife got a 15 inch crappie. The water was 62 degrees and the winds have sure dirtied them up.

Tonight is night 1 of high-school bass league, I am captain again this year. Hopefully Tonight goes good. 0 prefishing happened.

Fishing has been great in the BLA, finding tons and tons of 3 – 3.5lb. Off shore on the humps and drops with a cranks and chatter baits. However I feel like it is a morning bite because the afternoon has been super slow. Smallmouth are chomping like crazy now!

Charles wrote:

Fishing has been great in the BIL, finding tons and tons of 3 – 3.5lb. Off shore on the humps and drops with a cranks and chatter baits. However I feel like it is a morning bite because the afternoon has been super slow. Smallmouth are chomping like crazy now!

What’s the BIL? Did you mean BLA?

grubson wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Charles wrote:</div>
Fishing has been great in the BIL, finding tons and tons of 3 – 3.5lb. Off shore on the humps and drops with a cranks and chatter baits. However I feel like it is a morning bite because the afternoon has been super slow. Smallmouth are chomping like crazy now!

What’s the BIL? Did you mean BLA?

Autocorrect on my phone lol, yes BLA.

Bad night for leagues tonight. Biggest fish of 20 teams was 2.7.
We didn’t see a fish over 2 pounds. Tried shallow, ultra shallow, 6 to 8, 8 to 12 out to 16. Did find walleye tho.
Lost my new Maverick rapala to a pike on the first cast. Then a hour later lost a jackhammer to one as well. We placed 11th out of 20 so we didn’t do good.

Bearcat funny you mention the Maverick lost 2 this weekend to pike and another when it rolled in the net and cracked. Hoping they catch bass soon.

Lost a jerkbait and a chatterbait, and didn’t catch a bass over 2 pounds? Lol that is a rough night. Those pike are an endless assault on tackle aren’t they.