Seasonal Overview:
Nothing beats the ability to determine a consistent producing bass fishing pattern than time on the water. Knowing a particular body of water comes from gaining experience fishing it or, if you've never fished it, from doing your homework. If you want to become better at a body of water that you already bass fish on, then pay particular attention to detail and remember it, even better, write it down or record it in a log. Even if you've been fishing a lake for years and you have never looked at a fishing map of the lake (recorded depths and structure, contour), it would be a good idea to get one if there is one available. The first step is to know where to fish on a body of water at any given time of year. It's called being in the right place at the right time, and nothing could be more true with respect to bass fishing.
Which brings me to my next point. Know your quarry and it's habits, it's life cycle, it's food preferences, etc. Bass are selective predators, and by that I mean that they are creatures of opportunity. Yes, sometimes they will school up and follow schools of baitfish, but even then it's possible to predict that type of behavior. Rather, in most cases would prefer to ambush prey with a minimum use of energy. In other words, they lurk in ambush in some sort of cover or on some sort of bottom structure. Examples of cover include wood, weeds, boat docks, rocks, even floating objects. Examples of bass bottom structure include points, bluffs, junctures of creek channels, river channel or creek channel bends, flats, and shallow humps and/or islands around deep water. An important point when looking for good structure is that deep water sanctuary must be nearby. If you happen to find good cover on good structure than most likely you've found a bass fishing hot spot. Other factors that determine fish location are time of year, water temperature, PH, sunlight (bass love to hang out on the shady sides of cover and structure), current, wind and in tidal water, tidal currents and salinity. In the spring during prespawn, look for bass in lakes in areas that warm up first. Northern shorelines especially with Southern winds piling up the warmest surface water on them are hot spots, as are shallow bays with lots of sunlight exposure and dark bottoms to absorb the heat - again - near deep water sanctuary. Warming trends are better than cooling ones, and cold fronts dumping cold rain can shut things down in a hurry, so pick the right time. Good prespawn big fish lures include jig-n-pig combos, tandem spinnerbaits (worked fast to find active fish or slow rolled in deep water), hard jerk baits (husky jerks and rogues), plastic worms and tube jigs fished around known spring hangouts. Later in the warmer spring periods, sometimes a buzzbait or topwater like a Pop-R will produce. Be aware of fish and other wildlife activity to determine lure choice (discussed later).
During the spawn, fish are visible close to shore. On large lakes, you can locate active prespawn fish during the "spawn" by moving to the cooler areas of a lake. Post spawn period bass are often considered the toughest to catch. Generally, they don’t move far. Look for them in deeper water off the second breaklines near lake structure. Lake points are a good place to start. Slower presentations often work better during this time, such as a Carolina Rig crawled over lake points or jig-n-pigs, tubes, and grubs jigged slowly and thoroughly where you've found fish already.
Once the post spawn doldrums are over, summer patterns begin. All of the lures used earlier work in addition to having hot late evening and early morning topwater bites. Lake points, bluffs and deep river and creek channel bends are hot summer spots. Basically, if you catch bass in the winter those spots should be good in the summer. Bass often suspend over structure and around cover just over the thermocline in many lakes. Spring activity providing cooler water will hold bass in shallow water too, so don’t overlook those types of spots. Also, when fish are in cover, look for the thickest shadiest cover and you'll find bass. Current can often play a role too. Often creeks dumping into lakes provide cooler temperatures and oxygenated water, and bait! Nightime fishing is often very good in the summer. Water temperatures drop and sunlight is gone, bait is active, and the bass go on the prowl. Noisy topwater baits work well during the summer nights, such as buzzbaits, jitterbugs, crazy crawlers, Pop-R style baits, Zara Spooks, etc. The more frogs I hear, the more I think topwater. Also, don’t overlook baits that give off lots of vibration, such as spinnerbaits, in-line spinners and lipless crankbaits (Rat-L-Traps). Soft plastics work well at night too. I've had good success with black plastic worms or flukes at night. The key is knowing the fish are there.
As the summer winds down fish get more and more active during the day. All of the lures above work well. As fall approaches, you'll find bass often cruising lake flats in search of schools of baitfish. The feed is on as they prepare for winter by gorging themselves on crayfish, minnows and anything else that they can find. This is a time of year that you can really put up some numbers of fish and find big ones too. Search lures work well, like crankbaits and spinnerbaits, this time of year. Have a topwater or super fluke rigged on another rod in case you find bass busting the surface on schools of baitfish. As the water cools, the fish spread out. Finding them may be more difficult this time of year on one hand (based on conditions and structure), but their increased activity levels often give them away making it easy to find them.
Well, my time is up today. Look for more posts on how to establish a bass pattern later on the following subtopics:
1) finishing up by discussing where bass go in the winter and how to catch them completing the seasonal overview.
2) awareness of what is happening around you, "clues on what to use"
3) river bass
4) differences/preferences between largemouth and smallmouth
5) tidal river bass
