I hit a couple of small lakes this weekend with the fly rod. I was hoping the smaller bodies of water would warm up quicker, but no luck. Fished popper, sliders, divers and crawdad patterns.
Talked with a few guys tossing Senko who had hit a few small fish (1-2 lbs) in deeper water.
Has anyone seen any fish up on their beds yet? Looks like we'll need a shot of better weather to get them in the mood.
Brian

No, wait for a little while...

This good weather we got forecasted for the next week should pull the bass up into the shallows and into their prespawn patterns...From there, its just a matter of time till a few more degrees of water temp will get them spawning.

Here in my part of the of the state water temps have been up into the mid-50s.

The adult fish are definely in the pre-spawn mode. Fished last week and had a very good day on smallies. I would expect that the smallmouth will be moving on to the beds in the next week or so depending on the weather.

The largemouth while up in the shallows are still several weeks away from "bedding".

All of which means I have a week or so of smallmouth and a couple weeks of largemouth fishing until I knock off bass fishing for a while. Will be back on the water for bass after the spawn.

Tight lines
Curt

07 & Smalma,
Thanks for the info. I've become addicted to catching bass on poppers. I had some great days last summer fishing very early & late in the day.
Based on your info on the smallies Curt, I know where I'll be on Saturday.
Thanks again,
Brian

Smalma got it right. They are in the shallows but about 10 degrees from settling down. The bite is picking up more and more everyday!

Yea likewise what Daniel said. Temps are probably right around the low 50's and need to be up about 10 degrees. On a warm sunsoaked day, go out and find a spot of the lake which was hit by the sun all day and perhaps some bass will have moved up for the day to do some cruising.

These next few days are supposed to be a lot warmer, so check the water temps and I'd probably say that in about 2 weeks (ballpark figure, don't hold me to it) the temps will have the bass in the shallows in prespawn patterns

Are bass not active during spawn?

Well there are really three stages of the spawning period:
Prespawn
Spawn
Postspawn

Bass are really active in the prespawn because they are fighing for prime bed space, mates, etc, and just starting to be a lot more active after all the cold water. The spawn is basically bass just sitting on beds. Thats why during this time period you just basically go sight fishing for them with polarized glasses. And the postspawn, well I'm not totally sure about that, but I believe that the bass go back out of the shallows and become a lot less active...