Locations and season with late spring?

With this late spring I’m assuming by opener most bass will still be on deep edges would be my guess. Looking back on my fishing logs 2 separate years had late springs with the best fishing in middle June. may be some better fishing later in the season. Thoughts? For location talking around the Hutchinson/Annandale area. Still ice on some of the deeper lakes. I have been out on the boat a few times caught nothing and yes bass is closed no crappies/sunfish yet for me but very windy. Saw some bass on the camera they were in the mud 18-25 FOW and cozy I believe it could be a tough opener for bass but who knows maybe 90’s by next week ha ha.

mrpike1973 wrote:

I believe it could be a tough opener for bass but who knows maybe 90’s by next week ha ha.

Generally I do better when its a cooler opener. I don’t need to be dodging icebergs, but I prefer to have a crack at some heavy pre-spawn bass. A jerk bait with long pauses is a great early season pattern when the water is still cold. Last year sucked. It was hot and dry and miserable by the first of June. I would prefer to not go back down that road again this season.

With probably a lack of any real vegetation, fish will be moving around deeps and flats, maybe some moving up. Probably scattered. Will look for bait balls or schools on Livescope. Jerk baits, Minnesota-rigs.

Depends on what Bass opener you are talking. By the May 28th date that is the bass opener allowing you to keep Bass, I think Bass will be in all Three stages like normal ( Pre Spawn, Spawn, and Post Spawn ) Take your pick how you want to catch them. For the Catch and release opening Date of May 14th ( 4 weeks from this last Sat ) its anyone’s guess right now. With the delayed spring we are having the water temps may be a little cooler than Normal. As Gimruis said the slow worked Jerkbait may be the hot ticket. Then again there will also probably be plenty of bass up shallow looking around and those usually can be caught on a spinnerbait or a dead sticked / slow worked stick bait. It all depends on the weather between now and then ( This is Minnesota so that is all a crap shoot )

As said above jerkbaits and spinnerbaits have been best for me when the fish are pre spawn in dark bottom bays.
For small mouths the 6 to 10’ of water range with rock or gravel. Tubes, swim baits drug very slow on bottom and jerkbaits have been best.

Sounds pretty much like what I figured it would be jerk baits can be killers. Glad I’m on the same page as everyone else. Cooler temps will be nice if it stays that way.

I was looking through past pictures on my phone and its amazing that each year the best fishing seems to start around the 2nd week in June and continue till about mid Aug. That’s a short 8 weeks to hit them while the bite is Good. each year I try and spend as many days as possible during that time on the water. Last year it seemed like the good bite died a little earlier than normal. I think it was due to the lower water levels and the High water temps we had starting in mid July. It just seemed like the deeper weeds died off in late July last year. I just don’t understand why. I would think more sunlight and warmer temps would be good for the deeper weed growth.

I did awful once June hit last season. It was OK until then. It was hot, dry, and we had weeks of high pressure on end with no weather changes after Memorial Day. Things shifted in late July for me and it was really good until about Labor Day. My absolute best days last season were from August 7 through September 6. We had a series of low pressure fronts come through during that span. The fish were hungry and aggressive. I can remember several days when I went fishing in the rain and it was just lights out. There was no finessing them at all.

Fall wasn’t as good as it normally is last season. Last season was an outlier because of our historic drought though. Normally it is not 90 freaking degrees for weeks on end in June. I won’t even fish in that super hot humid weather anymore.

Follow the forage and start watching the staging areas outside of spawning flats. The cold will have them out deeper than we normally see when bass fishing opens up I’d assume.

I favor a late Spring allowing me a better chance of getting on a magical pre-spawn bite. I didn’t get on one of those last year. It could have been the low water and quick warm-up or what I fear, that Platte Lake is in decline due to overuse of weed-killer. Another theory that one of my fellow bass club members came up with is that I am overpressuring the fish. Last year the fishing for me was steady but on the slow side from start to finish. My best day was in the mid-twenties for the number of fish caught. Last year was just a fun grind. So many casts to get the bites I got most days.

They’ll be up shallow somewhere. Follow the crappies/sunfish and you’ll find them

Start shallow and work deep. They could be in that 6 to 8 FOW range waiting to move up. Go deeper if you have to. Jerkbaits , crankbaits and lipless cranks should work. Use lures with a tighter wobble for cold weather. Rip and pause is a good technique to use.

Start shallow and work deep, great spring strategy-oh and summer and fall too.
If they are shallow they are more aggressive and you can find them fast.

Looking at the long-term forecast, unless there is a significant change its going to be quite a delayed spring here. I was just down in Arkansas and the fish are usually staging pre-spawn by now, but instead were still in 15-25 fow with few signs of moving up yet. They are usually up to a month ahead of us, so do the math for MN.

I agree Frydog. I was out on white bear to nights ago and temps were 40. Ice out was only Monday or Tuesday of last week. We might get a full prespawn and spawn to fish this season!

mahtofire14 wrote:

I agree Frydog. I was out on white bear to nights ago and temps were 40. Ice out was only Monday or Tuesday of last week. We might get a full prespawn and spawn to fish this season!

Wow that would be unique in Minnesota, but sign me up for it. Ha, I went out of state to find pre-spawn conditions. Picked the wrong year, but still fun to be on water again at least.

Fished 6 lakes this weekend horrid conditions. Water temps 40-42 degrees all fish marked in 20-25 FOW I caught 1 crappie all weekend they are pretty much on ice fishing conditions. It was almost impossible to fish in the wind with crappie jigs. Picked up some slip floats for the next go round. Sounds like rain all this next weekend.

I agree with the prespawn. Usually we do not get a fair amount of time to target bass here during prespawn, but this spring there may be a decent crack at it, which I am all for.

I went panfishing about an hour north of the Twin Cities on Saturday afternoon in that hurricane and between my parents and I we must have caught over 100 crappies in about 2.5 hours. Problem is only 3 of them were over 8 inches, but it’s a lake known for dinks. Usually catch a few small bass mixed in, never saw one.