In Part I, we covered some general information about spawners, where to look for them, basic behavior, and some tools that you’ll need. Now we’ll jump into the art of catching them. Frankly, some spawning fish – usually the males – are dumb. You can throw just about any bait onto their nest, and they’ll eat it, sometimes on the first or second cast. But many other bass are wary. The big females didn’t get that way by being dumb. Even the males can get tight-lipped once they’ve been on guard duty for a while. A big part of the sight fishing game is reading the fish to determine whether they’re catchable.
Some fish just can’t be caught. The quicker you realize it, the less time you waste. How do you tell if a fish is unwatchable? If the female is in the middle of dropping her eggs – you’ll see her rolling on her side – she typically won’t eat. You’re better off coming back a little later. Another tell for a non-catchable fish is that it spooks before you even get close. It’s also not good if the fish takes a long time to return after swimming off the nest. If it takes five minutes for a buck bass to come back to the bed, and then it disappears for another five minutes as soon as you make a cast, it likely can’t be caught. I’ll often leave a bait on the nest while I’m waiting for a fish to return. After it sets up on the bed again, I’ll give the lure a twitch. If the fish bolts immediately and takes a long time to return, it’s time to look for another fish. Conversely, if you drift directly over a shallow nest and the fish doesn’t leave, you’ve found a winner. A fish that hunkers tight to the bottom and flutters its pectoral fins is aggressively defensive. It will usually bite quickly. Similarly, if a fish swims away but stays within sight of the bed and returns quickly, it’s usually catchable. If a fish doesn’t return quickly, sometimes it’s just a matter of you being too close. Try backing further away to where you can barely see the nest. Occasionally that skittish fish will return and let its guard down once you’ve given it some space. Also, don’t think that this means you have to move toward deeper water. There are times when I’ll set up right against the bank and try to present my bait from a different angle than most anglers. Big boats often can’t go shallower than a bed, but your kayak can.
So you’ve found a fish that slowly swims off its bed, circles, and quickly returns. How do you catch it? There’s no magic formula. Every fish is different. The key is experimentation and observation. Make a quiet cast to the bed and watch the fish. How does it react to your lure? A fish that noses down on the bait is interested. Watch its pectoral fins and tail. When the fins start flailing, it’s getting irritated, so be ready for a strike. Let’s say a fish noses on your bait but doesn’t bite. Then it moves away slowly. Try twitching or hopping the lure and see how the fish reacts. If it turns back quickly, stay ready. Fast movements are a good indication that it’s getting angry. If you get a good reaction out of a fish, but it still doesn’t eat, repeat whatever you did to trigger the positive response. Sometimes it’s just a matter of time. Duplicating that cast or retrieve over and over can steadily aggravate the fish until it finally snaps.
Truthfully, every fish is different. Some fish will react to a bait that’s sitting still. Others are triggered by a lure shaking in place. Some can’t handle a bait being slowly dragged across the nest. Hopping a lure aggressively off the bottom will provoke others. Experiment with your sinker size too. A heavier weight – let’s say 1/2 oz and up – will allow you to maintain bottom contact and shake a lure in place. And sometimes a faster fall will trigger bites. Conversely, a 1/16 oz weight will let a bait glide past the fish slowly. A weightless wacky rig is even slower. Some fish that ignore a lure on the bottom will react to this slow fall. This has worked particularly well for me when working beds in eelgrass. Bait size is another important factor. Some fish react better to small lures. Others will ignore a small bait but respond to a big lure. If I’ve got a catchable fish that won’t fire on more subtle lures, switching to a full-sized Missile D Stroyer – a bulky creature bait with lots of appendages – sometimes does the trick. The fish won’t always eat the bigger bait, but they will start to get aggravated. Once I start to see those signs of aggression, I’ll switch back to a smaller offering and often get bit on that next cast. The thing to remember is that every fish is different. You have to try different baits, weights, retrieves and casting angles until you find a combination that works. Sometimes that formula will be repeatable on other fish in the area. You can keep one rod in your hand and move from bed to bed. But don’t be surprised if you have to change things up for each fish. Remember, each one is different, so read their movements and make adjustments until you crack the code.
Well, what do you do if your lake is too dirty to sight fish? Can you still catch bedding fish? Absolutely, you don’t have to see them to catch them. My favorite way to blind fish for spawners is with a Missile D Domb. The profile is a perfect match for a pesky bluegill that wants to eat bass eggs. Using a 3/16 to 5/16 oz weight, I’ll pitch to stumps, standing trees, laydowns and anything else that a fish might bed next to. Then comes the hard part, I do nothing. I don’t shake it, hop it, or drag it. The most I’ll do is give the bait a quick twitch as soon as it hits bottom. I leave it motionless for 15 to 20 seconds and then move to the next target. It can be difficult to fish this slow, but it’s key. Fortunately, it gets easier after you catch a fish or two. A stickworm like the Quiver 6.5 is another good choice for dead-sticking. It’s my go-to anywhere in Florida. I also like it around pressured fish. It’s a more subtle bait that sometimes works when fish shy away from the D Bomb. A final tip on blind bed fishing, always make another cast after catching a fish. Try to put your bait in the exact spot where you got the strike. Many times, you caught the male, and the female will bite on the next cast.
Before talking tournaments, I want to make a recommendation on hooksets. Don’t set too fast on bedding fish. Some fishermen swing immediately whenever they see a fish’s mouth open, its gills flare, or the lure to disappear. I think that’s a mistake. There are certainly times where finicky fish won’t hold onto a lure. They will bump it, grab it by tip of the tail, or inhale and immediately blow it out of the nest. I’ve found it extremely difficult to hook these fish by sight. By the time you react and start your swing, the fish has already spit the lure. Even if you do hook the fish, it’s likely to shake loose during the fight. I think this is caused by too much slack in the line. When you don’t reel down before setting, the hookset is weaker and you leave slack in the line. You have to reel like a madman to catch up to the fish, giving it a window to escape. Setting after an initial tap is not good either. Sometimes the tap is actually a fish bumping into the line inadvertently, and if you set right away, you can hook them in the side. Don’t be that guy. I always want to feel the weight of the fish before setting. I’ll watch the line and lure, but I won’t swing until I feel the fish. When I do, I reel down and set like on a typical worm bite. If a fish is just nipping the bait, I’ll keep working it, experimenting with different lures and retrieves until it bites and holds. If I can’t get it to fully commit after several minutes, then I’ll leave and look for a more cooperative fish. Sometimes it’s better to let that fish win and move on. It’s easy to get sucked into a long chess game that eats up half the day. I’ve done it many times. Trust me, sometimes you need to concede a battle to win the war.
So, what about tournament fishing? Is bed fishing a viable strategy for a kayak tournament? Yes! It’s one of my favorite things to look for in spring, but it’s always a gamble. On multiple occasions, I’ve located big females during practice, only to have them disappear by the start of the tournament. Though this can be frustrating, to me it’s worth the risk. Standard kayak tournaments only count your best 5 fish each day. If I can find 30 beds with quality fish during practice, I like my chances of catching 5 in the event. When preparing for a tournament, I mark every bed that has a fish on it and put notes in the waypoint name. If no one is around, I’ll even make a few casts to get a better idea of how catchable the fish is. I’ll note whether there’s a single fish or a pair, the size of the fish, and their aggressiveness. This information will help me put together a milk run for tournament day. Big males are key in my sight-fishing strategy. A long, skinny male counts the same as an egg-laden female, and a male is more likely to stay put. Locating big females is great too. They’re typically the fish that win tournaments, but there’s also a higher chance that they’ll ghost you on gameday. Ideally, I’m looking for a mix of big females and big males. Small males aren’t a particularly exciting find, but I still mark them during practice. You never know when a big female will show up, so it’s not a bad idea to check those beds after you’ve hit the ones that had better fish. Something else that I consider is how easy a bed is to spot. One that’s difficult to see is more valuable than an obvious one. Whether it’s in a hard-to-access area or it’s just in deeper water, a bed that hasn’t been found and targeted by other anglers is more likely to have cooperative fish. Bottom line, I’ve had some great tournament finishes bed-fishing, but I’ve also had bombs. It’s a high-risk, high reward game, so play at your own risk.
Sight fishing is one of the most exciting ways to catch bass, and it’s only available for a short window. Hopefully, you’ve picked up a trick or two and you’re juiced to get after those springtime giants. Now is the time. Get out there and catch that fish of a lifetime.
