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Learning Lakes Like a Pro
Want to know how BASS pros dissect a fishery with very little experience on a particular lake? Here are seasonal secrets that will get you on fish faster.
Sure, that's what your mother used to say.
But that's also the advice of the pros, especially if you are going to fish a lake that you've never been on.
Whether you're going there for a tournament or just to have fun, you'll catch more bass if you crack the books, cruise the Internet and make a few phone calls first.
That's just what Sheri Glasgow did before competing at Lake Amistad in the opening event of the 2007 Women's Bassmaster Tour (WBT). She had never seen the lake before the early spring event, but managed a third-place finish en route to Angler of the Year honors.
"You can cut down on a lot of driving around and looking by studying first," says the Oklahoma pro. "You want to gather as much information as you can beforehand."
Elite Series pro Pete Ponds adds, "I'll talk to anyone who knows anything. I'll look at results from local tournaments. That will give me an idea of what to expect in weight. And if the same name turns up again and again, I'll call him."
Arkansas' Kevin Short, another Elite Series angler, rarely talks to anyone, but still does his homework, scanning back issues of Bassmaster and BASS Times, as well as using the Internet.
"I will devote a good deal of time to map study, as well as services such as Google Earth, which provide good aerial photos," he says.
Of course, a savvy pro looks for information that is appropriate for the season that he will be fishing a new lake.
And once he gets there, his approach to learning that fishery will be determined by the time of year, as well.
With the help of four pros, here's a seasonal guide to learning new lakes.
"When I first get to the lake, I like to sit at the ramp or maybe out in the middle and just look at the lake and compare it to a good topo map," says Glasgow, who prefers a Lowrance Hot Spots map.
"I want to find travel paths into spawning areas."
Establishing a pattern in spring, adds the Oklahoma pro, is all about the spawn, whether it's before, during, or after.
"Unlike what many people think, these places don't have to be backwaters," she adds. "If you have a lake that doesn't have much current, midlake high spots can be good, too."
Glasgow wants to find creeks, drains and ditches that provide migration routes from deeper water to those spawning areas.
Whether bass will be in those travel corridors or up in the shallows depends on water temperature and moon phase. From 60 to 62 degrees, males will be up, probably making beds.
"Bigger females might be in the area," Glasgow says, "but they probably are not shallow.
"At 65 degrees, though, with a full moon, the females will be on the beds."
After the eggs hatch, the females will pull off to deeper water, while the males guard the fry. "If you see a dark spot, that's the ball of fry," Glasgow says. "The male should be nearby, while the female has moved out to recoup and feed up."
Cold fronts, she emphasizes, can disrupt the process, chasing fish off beds. "The drains and ditches provide protection from the weather."
As she explores spawning areas, Glasgow prefers to spend most of her time on the trolling motor, as opposed to actually fishing. "So much about finding fish in the spring is visual," she emphasizes.
To aid her, she uses sunglasses with amber lenses for low light and gray for bright. "If there are lots of patchy clouds, sometimes I have both pairs around my neck."
She also likes to mask the sound of her trolling motor with shad noises from her Biosonix unit as she cruises the shallows.
Once he gets to a lake, Ponds visits tackle shops.
"I like to talk to the dealers," says the Mississippi angler. "And I like to see what is missing and what is overstocked, both in style and color."
He also likes to drive along the lake in his truck, using his GPS to find back roads, some of which dead end into the fishery. "Of course, if the lake is huge, like Erie, I can't see much," he says.
But if it's a typical reservoir, he can gather some useful information, such as the location of culverts with flowing water.
"Current overrides everything," he says. "Even in summer, fish will position in or around it. It's like the buffet line."
Once on the lake, Ponds looks for both forage and contours. "You need to know what the fish are used to seeing," he says. "And you want deep water with quick access to shallow."
That's because during summer, bass often need deep water refuges with richer oxygen content during the heat of the day.
As he explores those contours, the Mississippi angler first will look for grass, such as hydrilla or milfoil. "You can find that on your electronics," he says.
If vegetation isn't present, he then will focus on points and bluff ends, either in the main body of the lake or in the rivers that flow into the reservoirs.
"I would not go into the bays, coves and backwaters," he says. "There are always fish that live shallow. But I am looking for places the majority of bass hang out."
He looks for those fish early and late in the day. "In summer, fish don't bite all day. Maybe just 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. If I fish the most productive times, I'm more likely to find fish."
Upon arrival at a fishery that is new to him, Short likes to spend the first day riding around. Primarily he is looking for stained water, which often is in the upper reaches of the lake.
"This is the first place I will head to, as this is one of the first places where the shad will move up shallow," the Arkansas pro says. "If the majority of the lake is extremely dirty due to recent rains, I will actually look for clearer water.
"The key is to find the bait. Fall is one time of year when many fish seem to relate strongly to the forage. They can be caught off absolutely nothing — straight, bare areas of the lake — as long as the bait is present."
Short believes stained water often contains more plankton and algae, which is what draws the shad.
Additionally, shad will be drawn to rocks with algae growing on them.
"Much of the time, you actually can see the shad moving in huge balls along the rocks," he says.
Another benefit of the stained water, he believes, is that it encourages bass to move shallow in pursuit of shad, making them easier to target.
The Elite Series pro proved the wisdom of this fall strategy a few years ago during an early October tournament on Beaver Lake. Most competitors headed for the deep, clear water to fish for suspended bass in 40 to 60 feet, a typical late-summer pattern. Short motored up the lake to an area where shad roamed the banks.
"I was throwing a Norman Baby N and Deep Baby N in supershallow water," he recalls. "They all thought I was lying when I told them how I caught my fish. I had been to Beaver only once before during April, and had no idea how bass were 'supposed' to be caught that time of year."
Forage location is important in winter as well, according to Judy Wong, newly crowned WBT champion and longtime Louisiana pro.
"Shad will school up in large concentrations along deep, vertical dropoffs or ledges in creek channels," she says. "These are the areas you need to find with your sonar unit."
Bluffs with big rocks or boulders typically are better than gravel or dirt banks, she adds.
"Ledges with indentations or current breaks, such as rockpiles or big stumps, might hold crawfish and, therefore, be great areas for big bass to feed," Wong adds.
She likes to look for such places in bays and coves, away from flow and cold winter winds.
Protection from winds can be especially important when Wong hopes to find bass venturing into shallows to feed during a warming trend. Water that is heated by late-afternoon sun also is more likely to entice bass.
"The best time of day would usually be the last few hours of the day," she says. "Water temperatures may get a chance to warm by just a few degrees, which could make the difference in the bite."
Decaying vegetation, such as matted hyacinths, can attract bass by warming the water and providing protection from current, Wong adds. The downside of such cover is that too much decay can deplete oxygen levels.
Wherever the bass are in winter, their metabolisms have slowed and they are not going to feed as actively as they would during warmer months.
At times, a jig-and-pig or big spinnerbait, worked slowly, will find cooperative fish, Wong says. Other times, a drop shot dragged on the bottom or fished vertically, near bait, will draw bites.
THE TOUGHEST SEASON
Spring, especially around the spawn, often is the most challenging for Kevin Short.
"They can be loaded in an area one day and absolutely gone the next," he says. "They can fill a shallow spawning pocket for a few days. Then, with a frontal passage, every bed in sight can be empty."
Sheri Glasgow and Pete Ponds vote for winter.
"The water temperatures are low, the fish eat less and the strike zone is narrower," Ponds says.
Judy Wong, meanwhile, offers an outside-the-box opinion. "Winter fishing can be very difficult because it affects us mentally and physically," she says. "For most anglers, fishing in open water more than 20 feet deep, in air temperatures of 30 to 40 degrees is not the most fun.
"But the most difficult season probably is not a season, but between seasons. During these transition periods between two seasons, bass are on the move and not relating to any one type of structure."
SEASONAL HIGHLIGHTS
Spring: Bass movements and locations are dictated by the spawn. Find spawning areas and migration routes and you will find the fish — eventually. The slightest weather changes can move them.
"At Amistad, I found a series of drains leading into spawning areas," Sheri Glasgow says. "But the weather was unpredictable. What I learned, though, was that when the sun was out, it didn't take long for those fish to move really shallow."
Summer: Because of weather stability, this can be the easiest season to pattern — although usually not the most productive.
"During the summer months, the weather is very predictable across the majority of the country," says Kevin Short.
"Lake levels are steady or falling slowly. The spawn is over. About the only fish movement occurs if they follow schools (of shad)."
Fall: Follow the shad.
"In the spring the bass have a reproductive plan, and in fall they have a feeding plan," says Pete Ponds. "Find the bait and you will find the fish."
Winter: Bass might be relating to schools of shad and/or holding on deep water cover and structure that offer protection from current flow. Either place, their slower metabolisms dictate that they don't feed as often as they would during other seasons.
Best times to catch them are during a warming trend or just before the passage of a front.
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