Bass Seasonal Progressions: Winter and Early Pre-spawn

Since I was twelve years old, I’ve thought about bass 365 days a year. It was a 5-pound largemouth I caught on hula-popper out of a pond, and my brother’s influence that got me hooked. I often find myself thinking about the duration of a year in terms of bass behavior. I think we are quite similar to bass, as with all living things.

In Summer we are active, running around, or finding a nice shady place to hang out. While bass are often active chasing bait, hanging out somewhere deep, cool, or shady.

In fall we are pulled in a million directions with school, holiday gatherings, and running around Christmas shopping. While bass can be quite unpredictable and constantly on the move during the fall.

In Winter we are cold, focused on staying warm, and oftentimes inside more than out. While bass are sluggish, hunkered in wintering holes, and conserving energy.

In the Spring we feel the first warm front of the year and our serotonin receptors are firing on all cylinders. We want to be outside, feel the sun, and be active. While bass “wake up” in the spring and begin to feed heavily before getting ready to spawn. We do have bass beat in spawning, we don’t tend to care what season it is.

Luckily for us seasons don’t have to stop us from fishing. Instead, they just make us adjust our approach. Today we’ll talk about current winter conditions and what happens during early spring, or early pre-spawn.

Where to look, how to find bass, and when to drive in the winter.

Winter fishing can seem daunting, yet it’s also one of the most rewarding times of the year because if you find them, you found where they'll be for a while. Winter is not like other times of the year when you locate them and they’re gone the next day. Winter fish often, but not always, will be in their winter spots until the water warms up enough to begin their journey shallow.

Where to look and how to find them

This time of year I think about consistency and easy access to bait. As true with most lakes and reservoirs, the bite is most consistent on the lower end of a lake where the water conditions remain relatively stable compared to the volatility of mid and upper lake sections. This doesn’t mean you need to completely avoid other sections of the lake, but it’s a good rule of thumb to keep in mind this time of year, especially when visiting new waters.

Fish this time of year need easy access to their food source. When water is below 50 bass assert far less energy. Locating bait is essential and can often be found near the main river channel, creek channels, deep flats, ledges, and bluffs. Very rarely do I see bait shallower than 10 feet this time of year, and bait can be found as deep as 60 feet suspended on Lake Anna. Bass can often be found on high spots such as points, flats, humps, and docks that rest close to or practically touch the main creek, river channels, and ditches where the bait is located.

When I want to find fish this time of year, I move a lot, until I find them, then I sit. When locating bass this time of year I look at every single area there’s a channel swing. (An area where the channel turns while one side runs along shallower features) The keyword is shallower, not shallow, sometimes that’s still 30+ feet. In these areas, bass have ease of access from deep to shallow and places to ambush deep winter bait fish. Largemouth tend to be tight to the bottom this time of year. Some will suspend, but most, especially on Lake Anna are hugging the bottom or very tight to cover. You’d be surprised how far vertically they will rise for a bait this time of year. I’m sure most of you have heard of, or experienced a good wintertime jerk bait bite.

Some sneaky things you can look for in the winter are main lake feeder creeks after a rain, the bait will move for fresh oxygenated water. I also like west-facing clay and rock banks that have some of the wintertime characteristics discussed above. These areas get constant sunlight throughout the day and crawfish and herring will often push up on these areas and get more active.

My top 3 winter baits

1. Damiki Rig

2. Jerk bait

3. Drop Shot

When to Drive

I'll keep this simple, no bait and I'm gone. Winter fishing success is heavily dependent upon bait being in the vicinity.

Warmer Days, Highways, and Staging

We aren’t far off from most bass fishermen’s favorite time of the year. Give me 70 with some sunshine on the lake in March and I’d wish I could pause time. Just as we are getting excited to drop a line, the bass get moving. However, remember not all bass move at the same time and the highway to spawning grounds is full of stoplights, or staging areas.

Warmer Days

Look for water temperature trends and worry less about the water temperature on your graph. If a prolonged warm front rolls through and the surface temperature increases quickly over a short period of time, this can get bass active in the pre-spawn. And on the contrary, a cooling water trend can pause seasonal progressions. I say this with a grain of salt because with my fifteen years of experience on the water, I can almost say with certainty, that some fish are going to keep on chugging along no matter the temperature trend. That’s because things like an increasing photoperiod, and moon phases play a big role in seasonal progressions. Longer days give bass the visual queue to move up, while water temperature gives them the physical sensation, and you don’t necessarily need both in tandem to get things moving.

Highways and Staging

If you did get time out on the water in winter, and located some good groups of fish, you’re a huge step ahead of the curve. You can use mapping and follow the most logical routes most bass will take to nearby spawning areas.

On their way to spawning grounds, bass feed heavily and will stage on features and structures along the way. Think points, secondary points, docks, rock, laydowns, brush piles, or just about anything you’ve heard of bass relating to. Depth is relative to where you're fishing but on Lake Anna, I typically am fishing between 25 to 8 feet deep this time of year. That’s a large range, but the fish are all in different stages and depths in pre-spawn.

Bass are more aggressive this time of year and covering water can be critical to find the most active fish. This is a time of year when you can get rich quickly and roll up on the right spot to find active fish. This is also a great time to pattern fish, so keep an eye out for everything going on around you when you get a bite. Sometimes you find a unicorn of a spot, while other times you can duplicate what you just did around that area of the lake to find more hungry fish.

Take into account where you're fishing on the lake, different sections of the lake start to fire up more quickly than others. A major warm front can really kick things off in major creek arms, while your main lake fish can often take a little longer to make this progression.

I believe that a lot of main-lake-orientated fish aren't necessarily beginning their progression to spawn for the purpose of spawning. Instead, they are just following the bait shallower out of the depths, then all of a sudden they find themselves in warmer shallow water and think, "Well, I might as well spawn now." I don't speak bass fluently but I'm pretty sure one said that to me after a 12-hour day on the water running on four hours of sleep.

My Top 3 Early Pre-Spawn Baits

1. Jerk bait

2. Swim bait

3. Shakey head

In Conclusion

It's a great time to get out on the water, especially with the relatively mild winter we've been having. Of course, we could be hammered by winter cold fronts and feet of snow in March. You never really know in Virginia. I'm still willing to bet they're biting somewhere on the lake no matter what happens in the next two months.

Keep things simple and look at mapping to find areas they could likely be hanging out in the winter. After I locate them in the winter I often go back home to my computer and chart out as many logical progressions that group of fish could make towards spawning grounds. It's not an exact science but it's helped me have some successful early spring outings and be more efficient.

Things are about to get fishy. I hope you capitalize on the moments that make us love this sport this year, and have a good time doing it.

Let's Go Fishing