The Seasonal Guide is a system I've adapted to help find bass on unfamiliar waters. As a touring pro, I fish all kinds of lakes in many regions throughout the year. Obviously, I don't have time to become intimately familiar with each of these venues prior to tournament competition. When you only have three practice days to unlock the secrets of a 75,acre body of water, you need some guidance to help you quickly get on a viable fish catching pattern.
The Seasonal Guide provides that information, regardless of where or when I'm fishing. It helps me make educated guesses about where bass are most likely to be at any given time of the year. It's a system that quickly eliminates unproductive water and helps me home in on areas holding the most bass. The concept operates on the theory that at any given time, the majority of bass in a given lake will be on certain key types of structure.
Of course, not all bass will adhere to this "rule. The Seasonal Guide gives me the general direction I need to form a fish catching pattern quickly. How well I fine-tune this generalized pattern during competition determines how high I'll finish in the standings.
The temperature of the water is critical information — you can't fish the Seasonal Guide without knowing how cold or warm the water is. Sometimes, especially in prespawn, water that's just one degree warmer will hold most of the bass. If you don't have a surface temperature monitor on your boat, get one. Of course, the weather helps drive the Seasonal Guide. I'm addicted to The Weather Channel, and stay tuned to it constantly before and during tournament competition.
I pay attention to both general weather trends and daily conditions. For example, I want to know if there's a warm front or cold front on the way in or out.
I begin checking conditions for the area I'll be fishing as early as 15 days before a tournament. In using the Seasonal Guide, it helps to determine what type of lake you're fishing, because bass use different places in different types of lakes. I follow the classification of bass waters that divides them into lowland reservoirs, highland reservoirs, natural lakes, tidewater lakes and rivers, both natural and dammed. Let's take a walk through the six seasons of the bass fishing year and see what direction the Seasonal Guide can give us about each.
In reservoirs and natural lakes, most of the bass population will be on the main body of water, as opposed to tributary arms. They will be relating strongly to vertical and fast sloping structure: rock bluffs, river channel dropoffs, standing timber, degree rock or earthen banks, or standing timber. These are all places where they can make a major depth change by moving up or down: In cold water, bass are lethargic, and won't swim long distances to change depths.
In clear lakes, bass often suspend in the water column rather than hold tight to cover. Water clarity is a major determinant of bass depth in winter. In clear lakes, bass can go extremely deep — 50 to 60 feet is not uncommon. In murky lakes, they'll be much shallower. Since bass are sluggish, I'll use a slow presentation. In any season, I use search lures to find active bass. In winter, I prefer ones that draw strikes without moving fast. Suspending jerkbaits are my favorite winter artificials, if the water clarity is sufficient to use them these lures don't work as well in very stained water.
The fact that you can fish these lures in the same place for long periods of time makes them extremely deadly on suspending bass. Leadhead grubs also work great now; they probe vertical and fast sloping structure efficiently.
The same goes for jigs, metal blade baits and spoons. I may fish a crankbait in the upper end of the winter temperature spectrum. While searching out likely bass holding areas, I'll fish parallel to the structure; this keeps my lure deeper in the water column longer. This generalized winter pattern applies to natural lakes and all reservoirs, but in rivers, it's important to fish areas with no current. A big hole in the river bottom, where current washes overhead, is a good spot for smallmouth.
Largemouth like backwater areas with some depth to them, like close to a marina. Bass begin moving from their deep winter haunts toward their eventual spawning areas. I fish the same type of vertical areas now as in winter, but they should be close to a flat area, because bass like to spawn on flat places in protected water.
If I had been fishing bluffs in winter, I would now fish the ends of the bluffs, close to some shallower water. Northern banks are very important now because they're warmer than other areas on the lake. Look for them to associate strongly with cover in feet of water, where they can hold and ambush prey. Reservoir and lake bass move off-shore to deeper channel ledges, points, open water rockpiles and drop-offs, where they await schools of baitfish and intercept them as they pass.
Just how deep they go depends on particular factors of each lake or reservoir - current, structure, temperature, oxygen, and availability of food. The larger fish tend to go into deeper waters, while the smaller fish may stay in relatively shallow areas. Even in the heat of midsummer, however, bass often return to shallow waters to feed in the early morning, evening, and late hours.
Even so, they are rarely found in shallow waters in the middle of the day, especially when the sun is bright and the wind is calm.
Schooling behavior begins to occur as bass feed heavily in short bursts, then move back to their holding stations to conserve energy.
This is the time of year when a bass' attention is focused on feeding. Therefore stock your tacklebox with crankbaits, jigs, spinnerbaits, worms, spoons, topwaters and finesse lures. Search for submerged weedlines with your depthfinder and concentrate on the inside edges in the morning and outside edges in the afternoon - the more erratic the edge the better. Look for isolated patches of weeds and fish those first. Fish all types of weeds until a pattern is developed.
Bass will be in an ambush mode, and won't chase your lures. Therefore fish parallel to the structure. Use a rattletrap over these areas in the morning, then switch to small worms as the day progresses. Topwater baits can produce all day long, especially on overcast days. Lily pads, algea, matted weeds and other heavy cover are bass magnets. Fish these by either scooting a frog, rat or spoon over the top or punch through with a heavy jig or worm.
If it's windy, focus on the windy side of structure. Plankton is blown there which attract the baitfish which in turn attract the bass. Bass become more active as the water cools back into the low 70s and 60s and will attack a faster-moving bait, such as a crankbait.
Fish on long, tapering points with a deep-water access; some bass will be shallow and some still deep, and a long point interfaces with both environments. Boat docks and similar shallow structures offer good fishing during the fall. River channel bars and ledges provide places for the bass to feed on baitfish.
And most bass tournaments held in fall are won along channel edges in the far back ends of creeks. Search for steeper shorelines, vertical drop-offs and green weeds.
Topwaters are still a good choice as are spinnerbaits, jigs and oversized crankbaits. As it gets colder, slow down your presentation and downsize your lures. Flip jigs and plastics on remaining green weeds and drag plastics on deep outside breaks. Largemouth fishing is typically slow in the winter but it's a good time to catch a big fish. If you've spent much time trying to catch them, you already know that.
One day you can't keep them off your lures. Come back to the same lake a week later, and it seems like every fish has packed a suitcase and left the state. Bass don't travel, of course, at least not out of their home waters, but their moods change often, which is why bass that were so active one day may seem like they have taken a vacation the next time you go fishing.
More than likely, something in their homes has changed. Those changes are probably the result of a change in the water temperature or the season. Both play a major role in how bass behave.
Although bass adjust to changes in their environment, they're easier to catch during certain times of the year because they're easier to find and more willing to eat. That's why fishing can be so good in the spring and early summer and again in the fall.
But Ken Cook, a retired fisheries biologist and a professional bass angler, said it's a mistake to say bass prefer one season or another or that they "like" a certain temperature range.
Their bodies use more energy, so they need to eat more often," the Classic champ explained. They just eat less when they're cold. Humans are similar because we need to eat more when we're more active because we burn up more energy. Water temperatures change as the seasons change, and although temperature and seasonal variations both play different roles in bass behavior, the two are linked.
We all know that lakes, rivers and ponds are colder in the winter, hotter in the summer, and somewhere in between in the spring and fall, but do you know bass move as the seasons and temperatures change? That's why we catch them in shallow water sometimes and in much deeper water at other times. That's okay. Even Cook, a time Bassmaster Classic qualifier, didn't fully understand how natural variations in weather and seasons affect fish. Nobody really has all the answers. But based on his lifelong experience as a bass angler and biologist, he had a good understanding of where to find bass as the seasons change and as the water temperatures rise and fall.
It's more of an up and down movement. They go shallow and deep all within the same relatively small area as the seasons change, but they don't migrate from one end of the lake to the other," he explained. As winter gives way to spring and longer, warmer days heat the water, bass start thinking about spawning, so they move into shallow water because bass eggs need sunlight and warmth in order to hatch.
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