Opener bass tactics

Getting excited for the opener for bass. What are you all thinking for locations presentations? The local lakes I have been on mostly shallow dark bottom bayed lakes central MN area. I have found many very shallow 2-6 feet of water very skittish they still from what I can tell are post span fish no beds and wandering around. I caught a few mixed with crappies this last weekend. I believe I will start with small cranks, #8 husky jerks, shad raps, rippin raps then move to jigs and paddle tails or curly grubs if very cold will fish the weed edge or if sunny warmer out will start fan casting shallow bays. Any thoughts or what is your game plan.

Horizontal baits for me – across expansive flats on the north side. Got the blaze red Chatterbaits, a variety of jerkbaits, WarPigs, and a few Dark Sleepers ready to go…

I’ll be looking for warm water and areas with weed growth. Last year I caught 1 bass on opener in the first 3 hours and then 5 more in the next 20 minutes that were all in about 2-3 feet of water in direct sunlight. A slow wobbling shallow crank bait was the lure of choice.

The fish are most definitely still prespawn. I’ve found the fish on sunny banks over the last week tight to rock as they hold warmth the best followed next by any wood. I will be focusing on shallow rock or wood this weekend for opener with texas rigged creature baits, jerkbaits (tough to beat this time of year), chatterbaits, magdrafts (mostly because I want to see how well they work prespawn) and squarebill cranks. If they aren’t up shallow they should be staging just outside of spawning grounds in slightly deeper water.

For the shallow fish it’s a chatterbait or spinner bait. Mid depth I’m going with a rattletrap and a jerkbait. And for deep fish a DT12 or bomber fat A in Red shad color. This time of the year it’s not uncommon to find bass in all depths. The bigger post spawn females should be on mid depth flats and staging in the deeper water just outside of spawning area’s. Think the water temps are still a little cool in my area to have many good fish up shallow yet. There probably will be some smaller male fish up cruising around scouting spawning locations.

Docks that are metal. The posts throw some serious heat out to the water and those bass will tuck up next to them. It has to be pretty bright out for this pattern though.

Jerk bait, jerk bait, jerk bait, then maybe a chatter.

If the forecast holds with the warming trend I think the Opener might turn into a pre-spawn topwater smash fest for me. That is if the fish don’t go into spawn mode, which could happen.

Funny, no one mentioned the old spinnerbait yet, so I’m starting with one of those! Seems like other baits have replaced them the last few years. Got some gill-colored ones I figured might work better than the old standard white ones.

Love my spinners best lure ever for ol’ greenie.

I don’t see it going into spawn. Water temps have still been in the 50s in my area and spawn doesn’t start til close to 70. I’d be surprised if we see that by the weekend.

I love spinnerbaits. I usually don’t use them this cold but the beetle spins are great with a small natural boot tail plastic smaller package. I think helps a lot early or a small single blade spinnerbait.

mahtofire14 wrote:

I don’t see it going into spawn. Water temps have still been in the 50s in my area and spawn doesn’t start til close to 70. I’d be surprised if we see that by the weekend.

I think we might be closer than you think. Largemouth bass spawn anywhere from 55-70 degrees. I observed 56 degrees in the bays last week on Tonka and 53 on the main lake.

Was out today saw a few just staging I think your right gimrus the shallow lakes may start setting up on a few warmer lakes could be fun or they could be very negative biting

gim wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>mahtofire14 wrote:</div>
I don’t see it going into spawn. Water temps have still been in the 50s in my area and spawn doesn’t start til close to 70. I’d be surprised if we see that by the weekend.

I think we might be closer than you think. Largemouth bass spawn anywhere from 55-70 degrees. I observed 56 degrees in the bays last week on Tonka and 53 on the main lake.

You are right. Had my temps mixed up! Very happy we will be able to fish the spawn again this year. Nothing like sight fishing beds!

Full moon is 5/26 and I think as we get to upper 50’s low 60’s around that time frame the spawn will start to peak…

X-Rap, wacky worm, and the old rat-l-trap isn’t bad either. The fashionable choice seems to be the hair jig. It’s been around since the old days. Kinda like the Ned rig is a short jig worm. Should be a fun day. Decent forecast for a change.

ssaamm wrote:

X-Rap, wacky worm, and the old rat-l-trap isn’t bad either. The fashionable choice seems to be the hair jig. It’s been around since the old days. Kinda like the Ned rig is a short jig worm. Should be a fun day. Decent forecast for a change.

I couldn’t believe it took this long for someone to mention a wacky worm. That’s one of my main baits for the first half of the season, especially for LMB. For SMB I love x-raps, maribou jigs (I prefer the fuzz over the hair), and 4″ wacky worms.

Jackhammer, jackhammer, jackhammer, maybe a jackhammer, and a magdraft

blank wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>ssaamm wrote:</div>
X-Rap, wacky worm, and the old rat-l-trap isn’t bad either. The fashionable choice seems to be the hair jig. It’s been around since the old days. Kinda like the Ned rig is a short jig worm. Should be a fun day. Decent forecast for a change.

I couldn’t believe it took this long for someone to mention a wacky worm. That’s one of my main baits for the first half of the season, especially for LMB. For SMB I love x-raps, maribou jigs (I prefer the fuzz over the hair), and 4″ wacky worms.

Wacky worms for me are great but not pre-spawn… they are lights out spawn into post-spawn. I have better luck throwing horizontal baits before they go to bed…

That’s interesting Frydog. Is part of that because they’re maybe more active in pre-spawn and as a result they’re more willing to bite a faster moving, more aggressive bait, thus covering more water? Or is it the actual bait itself?

blank wrote:

That’s interesting Frydog. Is part of that because they’re maybe more active in pre-spawn and as a result they’re more willing to bite a faster moving, more aggressive bait, thus covering more water? Or is it the actual bait itself?

I think with the baitfish and everything else migrating towards the shallows pre-spawn everything is in motion swimming horizontally across the flats. Once they bed it gets to be target specific and dropping things like wacky worms vertically right down on top of them if you bed fish. Doesn’t mean you can’t catch them with a worm pre-spawn but if they are moving targets its a little harder (for me at least) to get one right in front of them at the right time.

That makes sense. Good explanation.

I almost always start with some kind of moving lure. If that isn’t working, then I switch to a slower, more finesse strategy that involves plastics. But if they’re biting a moving lure, I see no reason to switch because I’d rather catch them that way anyways.

Hair jigs have been mentioned, but its something I plan to do more of this year and early season is a good time to start.

After the 3 surgeries to my wrist, I had to switch to all baitcasting gear and got away from hair for awhile. I bought a new finesse baitcasting combo over the winter and am anxious to throw it this weekend.

In the park, I’ve been amazed how far and smooth it casts a light 1/16 oz Marabou, now time to see if it works in an actual lake with fish in it

Well, I’m not really sure what was going on for Opener at Platte/Sullivan. I caught a few 3lbers on Saturday morning’s trip, but numbers of fish just weren’t there. I quit fishing at noon. Went out with my brother at 7PM expecting the pre-spawn topwater bite to be on, but it wasn’t. Had to change locations a few times and we only got one bass apiece for the trip. At the end of the night, we got checked by CO Vang and he told us people said fishing has been really slow on Opener. My brother and I went out at 6AM on Sunday morning on got on a good topwater bite first thing, but it was done by 8AM. After that window, it’s like they disappeared. There wasn’t much activity going on in shallow. I didn’t see any beds. Wierd.

I found a new use for one my broken Omen fishing rods. My Ultrexx cable broke. It’s perfect for NASCAR, but not driving a boat from the bow. A little hillbilly steering wheel helps a bit.

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So how’d everyone’s tactics work for them on opener? Mine definitely caught fish but we couldn’t find the size except for a nice pike and 3.5 lber on my last cast of the day. It’s been a slow start for me this season. Hoping it picks up soon.

I did about the same as you on opener for largies/pike but I went to Mille Lacs 8 days ago and did better on brown bass. Caught them on a neon colored jerk bait, they were all prespawn females 18.5 – 19.5 inches long.

Nice grimruis! That’s a good day. I have to chose very carefully when I can go up there with a 17 ft bass boat. Hoping to find some time to sneak up there before the good spring bite shuts down. Were you getting them on shallow rock bars?