Anglers are drawn to spawn
Spring is prime time to catch every fish in Arkansas, but most resident anglers are chasing largemouth bass.
It’s easy to see why. Largemouths are in spawning throughout the Natural State right now. Depending on where you are, bass are in pre-spawn and spawning patterns. In extreme south Arkansas, they might have already spawned and are in post-spawn pattern.
POST-SPAWN BASICS
After females have spawned, they move away from the banks to deep water where they suspend in or over structure. Sometimes they suspend in open water. They are recovering from the rigors of spawning, resting and feeding in spurts to regain weight.
This is a challenging time to catch them because they are not consistently active or aggressive. The venerable old Carolina rig and the more contemporary drop shot rig are excellent methods for catching post-spawn largemouths away from the bank. Both elevate a soft plastic lure off the bottom, putting it higher in the water column where it might trigger a fish to bite.
The Carolina rig is a linear system. Place a heavy weight, up to 1-ounce, on your main line. Some people also put rattles on the main line that click against the weight and swivel to make noise that attracts bass. Pegging the weight or adding another attachment to keep the weight stationary prevents the weight from traveling too far up the line. Attach a ball-bearing swivel to the end of your main line and add a 18- to 24-inch leader. Attach a hook to the end of the leader. I use 8-pound test monofilament for the leader because it is more buoyant than flourocarbon line. I also use a syringe to inject air into a soft plastic lizard or worm to increase buoyancy.
A drop shot is a nonlinear system. It contains a bell sinker, or Dipsey sinker, on one line. Splice a leader as high as 3 feet above the sinker. This prevents the lure from contacting the bottom and keeps it at the desired depth. I inject air into a soft plastic lure on a drop shot, as well. I also spritz the lure with attractant, like Bang!
A downside to the drop shot and Carolina rig is that bass often ingest the lure before you feel the strike, which leads to deep hooksets. If you do not have a hook disgorging tool to safely unbutton a deeply-hooked bass, clip the line at the eyelet. If the hook is not stainless steel, it will rust away.
While large female bass might have moved off their nests, smaller male bass will remain to guard the nests from bluegill, which hover nearby. You can see them on the beds and provoke them to bite by pitching soft plastic lures onto or beside the nests. A bass guarding a nest often does not inhale a lure to eat it. It often grabs a plastic worm or lizard by the tail and moves it away from the nest. It is hard to hook a bass this way unless you snag it outside the mouth, which is considered unethical.
Late in the spawn, when males have constantly repelled bluegill assaults, they will savage a crankbait painted to look like a bluegill.
Catching a bass off a nest leaves the nest undefended. Even if you release the bass, bluegill will charge in and eat the eggs before the bass can return to the nest and drive them away. Male bass will also remain to guard the fry, which are easy prey for bluegills if left undefended. If that bass is taken to a weigh-in or kept for food, that nest will be lost.
If 200 anglers in a tournament are targeting bass on nests, high levels of success can diminish bass reproduction on a lake, especially if the lake is subjected to multiple tournaments during the spawning season.
For that reason, it least affects a fishery to fish for post-spawn females offshore. They weigh less because they are physically diminished, but they have also completed reproduction. Catching them at this time will not affect her offspring’s survival.
PEAK SPAWN
The peak of the spawn is when you find female largemouths on their nests. This period does not last long, and females are very reluctant to bite lures.
If you look closely with polarized sunglasses, you might see a bass rocking slowly from side to side to shake her eggs loose. A male bass will often hit her in the sides to further dislodge the eggs. When the spawner finishes laying eggs, she leaves the nest and returns to deep water.
About the only way to catch a bass in this situation is to put a lure in front of her face and shake it without actually moving it. If she bites at all, it will probably take a very long time.
Again, if you remove a bass from the water while she’s depositing her eggs, you will probably compromise the success of that nest. Taking that bass to a weigh-in will probably cause that fish to not reproduce.
PRE-SPAWN AGGRESSION
From Central Arkansas roughly to Greers Ferry Lake, male and female bass are on nests preparing to spawn. The males have already fanned out the beds with their tails, and you will often find a male and female together.
Move out so the bass can’t see you. Cast behind the bed and then drag a soft plastic lure to the nest. The fish won’t tolerate it and will strike aggressively to kill the invader. Release the fish quickly, and it will return immediately to the nest. It will almost immediately bite again as aggressively as it did the first time. I saw this happen with a smallmouth bass on the Buffalo River. My son caught and released that fish five times in rapid succession. Impact on the fish and fishery is least at this time.
PRE-SPAWN
In North Arkansas, bass are mostly in the pre-spawn stage.
If you cruise the banks, you will see small male bass creating beds in the shallows. The larger females are a short distance offshore waiting for their mates to create the nests.
Again, you can catch the females offshore with Carolina rigs and drop shots, and also with crankbaits. Bass are in prime condition and at their heaviest. It’s a perfect time to catch the biggest bass of the year while having the least detrimental impact on the fishery.