Spotted bass. I cant catch them.

[Wizzlebiz]

So I have caught a bunch of large mouth bass but recently I have been taking a trip to an area where there are only spotted bass. I cant seem to catch any of them. Do they eat the same lures as largemouth? I have tried 4 times now to no avail. 

 

I have only had one bite on a chatterbait in that 4 days of fishing. Im not quite sure what to do different than I would do with a largemouth but if anyone can help me its BR. 

 

Side note I was highjacked by bees today. I grilled a couple of steaks at the lake and about 20 bees swooped in and basically covered the dang steaks. I dont understand what that was about...

 

Help a brother out. 

[Jig Man]

I catch most of my spots on spinner baits.  The chatter baits aren’t working this year for me.

[NorcalBassin]

Might be worth a shot to downsize quite a bit (small underspin with a 2.8 keitech, Ned, drop shot, etc) or even throw a wacky rigged senko if they're in the top 15 feet or a neko if they're deeper.

[Bluebasser86]

Spots will eat anything a largemouth will. I've had my best luck with them on baits like walking topwaters, jerkbaits, paddletail swimbaits, shakyheads, dropshots, and Ned rigs. They're often much more open water/baitfish oriented than largemouth tend to be though, at least they are here a lot of the time.

[TnRiver46]

Funny timing on this thread, I bought some larger tube jigs yesterday for tossing into heavy milfoil around docks for some bigger largemouth. Launch the boat after work and head to that area, immediately start catching tiny smallmouth and spotted bass, go figure. We have them about anywhere, the ones in the areas with current (even massive reservoirs with current) behave differently than the ones in the deeper tributary reservoirs that don’t move as fast. The slow water spots follow baitfish in open water. The fast water spots eat everything they see and like heavy cover . The ones in the Alabama river down south are like 3-4 lb piranhas that cross bred with the tazmanian devil. When you get on a school of these, your hands will be ripped up and it’s definitely something to “write home about” (do people still say that)? Since you’re in Cali I would follow the advice of @NorcalBassin who always posts pictures of nice spotted bass on here. I’m guessing you are chasing them in deep clear lakes??

[BoatSquirrel]

For lakes that spots are the main species, there are two groups.  The larger group, and typically larger fish, are the roamers- big open water schools that follow bait and rarely see the bank.  The second group live around the bank all year and are much easier to find and catch.  These fish love wood.  Just go from tree to brushpile with a small topwater, shakey head and dropshot targeting every piece of wood you see around the bank or on your sonar.  Good luck man!

[Wizzlebiz]

4 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Funny timing on this thread, I bought some larger tube jigs yesterday for tossing into heavy milfoil around docks for some bigger largemouth. Launch the boat after work and head to that area, immediately start catching tiny smallmouth and spotted bass, go figure. We have them about anywhere, the ones in the areas with current (even massive reservoirs with current) behave differently than the ones in the deeper tributary reservoirs that don’t move as fast. The slow water spots follow baitfish in open water. The fast water spots eat everything they see and like heavy cover . The ones in the Alabama river down south are like 3-4 lb piranhas that cross bred with the tazmanian devil. When you get on a school of these, your hands will be ripped up and it’s definitely something to “write home about” (do people still say that)? Since you’re in Cali I would follow the advice of @NorcalBassin who always posts pictures of nice spotted bass on here. I’m guessing you are chasing them in deep clear lakes??

Yes lake berryessa 

[WRB]

I haven't fished Berryessa in a while but a Spots in that lake are deep chasing baitfish in the lower end narrows area. Granite rock is usually the key structure element in California lakes with Spots.

Without my boat I wouldn't know where to start because steep rocky shore isn't easily fishable from the bank and finding baitfish (Threadfin Shad) without sonar is a task. 

If you are intent targeting Spots look for Pied bill grebes ( the little puff ball looking diving birds) and Western grebes, the bigger long neck basically white bird that are always in flocks grouped together.

Spots are very aggressive feeders catching them means locating them on lures that replicate Shad, they seem really like translucent smoke or green 4 1/2"-6" worms with lots of silver and gold flakes with charteuse tip tails. Fishing from shore limits what you can use without snagging all the time. 

Tom

PS, it was yellow jackets not bee's.

 

[Sam]

On Lake Gaston in Virginia this past September 28th we caught spotted bass on Senkos and trick worms.

 

[Alex from GA]

I regularly fish for spotted bass in a deep lake and small rivers and usually catch quite a few on every outing.  In fact I got home a while ago from the lake and we caught some big spotted bass.  Most of the bass I catch are with a finesse worm and 6 lb line but today I used a buzzbait.  Our lake, Lake Lanier in GA, has probably about 90% spots compared to LM.