Fishing the Spring to Summer Transition

As bass have completed their spawn, some will continue to live up shallow all year long.  These bass will take up residence around hard cover, such as boat docks, laydowns or riprap.  The bass relate to this shallow cover as their home; they live around it as it provides protection from predators and a good location to use as a food source. This hard cover will also more than likely have a consistent presence all year long.

The other portion of bass will vacate their shallow haunts and move back to the first form of cover they can find.  Many times, this is an inside weedline on a lake or an emergent lily pad field on a river.  What these areas provide is cover for the bass to be protected while they recoup from the spawning process, along with ambush areas to grab food as they need it to replenish.

PROVOKING A TRANSITIONAL BASS

Targeting these transitional bass is action-packed, as these fish are hungry and on the move so covering water is the name of the game.  Using reaction style baits provoke these fish into biting and keep you on the move so you can eliminate unproductive water quickly. 

Using a swim jig is a great lure choice for this time of year. It can be cast around cover and retrieved back to the boat or if there is an isolated piece of cover on a flat or a pocket in a weedline, that bait can be stopped and worked around that cover.  A ¼-oz. swim jig with a Zoom UV Speed Craw or Swimmin’ Super Fluke Jr. are two of my top trailer choices.  When it comes to selecting colors, I base that off of the forage I’m trying to mimic. 

The other tactic that I like to use to target these transitional bass is with a topwater.  I’ll either go with a walk-the-dog style plug, like a Heddon Zara Spook or a soft plastic frog like a Snag Proof Bobby’s Perfect Frog.  Both baits allow me to cover water and these baits will bring bass to the surface as they are worked over their heads.  What I like about either of these baits is they can be worked along a weed edge or over the top of it and ripped out of the weeds; many times this is when a strike will occur.

SMALL AREAS CAN HAVE BIG BASS RESULTS

Once the bass have had a chance to fatten up and boost their energy, they’ll move out to deeper water and a key transition area to look for is where the weeds, meet the rocks.  Some bass will move right to these transition areas following their exodus of the shallows as well. 

These very small transition areas can have the mother load of big bass on it!  Using your electronics to search out these areas is crucial to locating them, but then using a marker buoy and GPS to make precise casts to the target can be key to keeping your bait in on an active school of bass. Depending on the lake you are fishing, the occurrence of this transition could be frequent, or a rarity.

Pay close attention to the type of weeds you are getting bites on. Sometimes the bass will prefer milfoil over coontail, or vice versa. 

My go-to lure when fishing this transition is a jig worm; this is a 1/8-oz mushroom jighead with a Zoom Fluke Stick Jr threaded up it.

With warmer weather here and the change of seasons upon us, be sure to look for those spring to summer transitional areas for actively feeding bass!