Fishing tip of the week

Fishing Tip of the Week

Tuesday, 07 May 2024 11:10

Benefits of fishing the shad spawn
by Mike Gerry

When it comes to an exciting and active time in bass fishing nothing beats fishing the shad spawn.
There is a very good reason for this, the abundance of large amounts of food sources. There is no doubt large numbers of shad make the bass easy prey. This phoneme known as the shad spawn increases the bass activity making the bass more susceptible to your bait and much easier to have some great catches not only in numbers but in size. Just about any moving bait fished during the shad spawn causes reaction bites as the bass attack rapidly and continually when this occurs.

Your chances of targeting active fish, feeding fish and big fish increases 3-fold. Your bait gets slammed and attacked by feeding bass and in most cases you’re in for the time of your life in bass fishing. The bass generally feed near the surface over the top of structure like wood or grass and generally in shallow water. This makes baits like top-water fishing extremely active and rewarding as the bass strike without hesitation on surface baits moving over their heads.

Fast moving baits like swim jigs, chatter baits, spinner baits all become great choices along with your top-water baits as you look for feeding during the shad spawn.
It’s a time when you can easily plan a fishing trip just by looking at the topographical maps and fish the shallow water areas close to the deep-water drops putting you in position to target pre-planned areas easily during the shad spawn.

This phoneme is predictable and occurs every year as the water temperatures warm into the low 70’s on most bass fishing impoundments.
Although the shad spawn out continually during the year for about 9 out of the 12 months the first one that occurs during the warming water is the most active and most productive as the bass have been healing up from their spawning activity, their hungry and competitive and the over abundance of food cause them to feed aggressively. It’s a time that makes bass fishing easy, fun and extremely productive.

Captain Mike