What's Your Favorite Season for Catching Bass

[papajoe222]

  I just finished reading Pete M. Anderson's article about fall fishing being the favorite for many anglers with spring maybe slightly more popular and it got me to thinking. I know spring is my favorite season to go fishing for the big girls, but summer is my favorite for catching. Although I dislike dealing with pleasure boaters, jet skiers, bugs and the heat, I have my best days during the summer, especially when there's been stable weather conditions for more than three days. IMO, it's much easier to locate numbers of fish and develop a pattern that can last as long as the weather remains stable.

Catches of 20-30 fish can be repeated in the days that follow with little, if any, tweaking of the previous days pattern. While those numbers pertain more to smallmouth, which tend to gather loosely in bigger groups than largemouth and are more aggressive, IMO, largemouth seem easier to pattern.

  So what's your favorite season for catching and why?

 

[WRB]

No doubt pre spawn is my favorite seasonal period to bass fish. The weather is unstable and difficult to locate the big females staged but the reward is catching a bass of your lifetime.

Fall where I fish can be really tough if the lakes turnover and they do killing 2 weeks of fishing.

Summer is the most productive seasonal period for numbers of bass plus we have a few night events that always fun to fish.

Winter can be good but our bass tend to go deeper then I like to catch them but you can put some good numbers in boat if they are above 30’.

Tom

[GreenPig]

Really enjoy Fall bassing, but the prespawn and shad spawn is the best.

[Columbia Craw]

Largemouth pre spawn

Smallmouth. right now

[Susky River Rat]

Do not make me choose between spring and fall. That’s like asking my wife where to go for dinner. I can’t decide. 

[DaubsNU1]

Favorite season for me would be summer, for sure. 

 

It's hard to get three consistent days of weather in spring or fall here in Nebraska. 

 

Yesterday it was close to 90 degrees, sunny with light breeze. Cold front moved through over night, highs in the lower 60's today, north wind 15-25 MPH. 

[gulfcaptain]

All 4!!! I'm lucky enough to be able to fish all 4 seasons without worrying about ice. And honestly my biggest days come late winter/early spring when our water Temps are 55. 

[Catt]

From January 1st - December 31st

[Bankbeater]

I like summer for catching, but winter has to be my favorite season.  If the water is not frozen over I can go out and fish and have the lake to myself most of the time.

[GRiver]

I’m fortunate, I can fish all four here, but I think I like spring the best. The cool mornings, the sun coming up to warm things. The new growth, everything green and growing.

[Swamp Girl]

Quote

it's much easier to locate numbers of fish and develop a pattern that can last as long as the weather remains stable

 

That's true for me too. In June, if I discover that they're tucked into shoreline notches, I can pound those notches and catch 40 bass. If they're in the zombie reeds, ditto. If they're ten feet off-shore, more of the same. 

 

Come late summer and fall, I have to skitter all over to find them. 

 

So, it's early summer for me. Plus, as pretty as fall is, every dang day is shorter, giving me less and less time to fish.

[Jar11591]

Summer for me, because it’s the most predictable. I know right where the fish will be and when they will be there, regardless of conditions. 

[Mike L]

Starting in about a month to late Spring. 
Every DD bass I’ve caught was in that window 

 

 

 

 

Mike

[A-Jay]

The local brown bass population seems mostly receptive to my offerings

in the April/May time frame. 

This includes size & decent number of big fish.

Summer (late June/July) lake Menderchuck is like the dead seas for me when it comes to plus size fish.

However it gets right again in August, Sept and even early Oct sees

decent size fish and if I hold my mouth right, my numbers go way up.

A-Jay

 

 

[Pat Brown]

Pretty much now through March is when Pat gets  very excited about fishing for bass.

 

I love warm month bass fishing also - topwater morning noon and night is hard to argue with - but something about that thump in cold water gets the hair on my arms to stand up real tall.

[Junk Fisherman]

So hard to answer.

1)  I love March when my local powerplant opens and I can get out on cold days and fish 60 degree water putting some good bass in the boat.  It always feels good after the long winter.

2)  Prespawn largemouth in my central and southern Illinois waters is always an anticipated mainstay of my fishng calendar.  

3)  June in Northern Michigan for smallmouth is when I catch my best fish of the year.  Granted, it's not as good as it used to be.

4)  I love fishing Lake Michigan locally in the summer.  

5)  Late fall can be fantastic.  I also enjoy the fact that I usually have the water all to myself.  Hunting, football, and a lack of tournaments greatly reduces the number of fishermen around me in the fall.  I really enjoy fishing till dark (early evening) and the almost lonely feeling that the water gives as another season is just about over.  

 

But to answer the OP's question, prespawn Great Lakes smallies is my favorite fishing season.  

[F14A-B]

Depending on how rough the winter was but if it’s been mild, by the end of February early March it becomes hog hunting time, of course weather interruptions etc will reset the cycle but it’s the best period of the year. I’ve done well in Fall as the water isn’t busy at all and some good fishing days along with stable beautiful weather.

[LrgmouthShad]

Early prespawn or winter

[crypt]

4 hours ago, Catt said:

From January 1st - December 31st

this ......

[Catt]

August is by far my most productive month.

[king fisher]

June is my favorite time.  Where I live there are basically two seasons. Rainy season from July to mid October and dry season from Nov. to July.  During the rainy season the water is high and muddy, and the bass are spread all over the shoreline.  Big bass can be caught on buzz baits, but the fish are spread out, and it takes many casts to catch one.  They are not grouped up, so if I catch one, I don't usually catch another one in the same location.

 

After the rain stops, the water slowly drops and the visibility improves.  By June the water is very low, and the bass concentrate on structure in deep water. This time of year, once I locate the bass, I can catch multiple  fish in the same location. 

[geo g]

In south Florida you can almost always catch bass, and peacock.  But the seasons don’t matter as much as the water levels.  When the water is high the bass are scattered everywhere, and many places are beyond approach in a boat with hundreds of  thousands of shallow acres chock full of weeds and sawgrass.  Nothing can get in there without an airboat.  Bass boats can not go.. the bass navigate the stems with ease during this time.

During low water conditions the fish are forced into deeper waters and out of the grass and weeds, and into the canal systems that are dredged 10 to 30 feet deep.  This s when a 200 catch day is a real possibility every trip.  The thick flats can go dry, or just have inches of water on them.  The fish either get to deep water or become bird food for the millions of waiting birds.  Low water season depends on the weather and is usually between December thru May.  Fishing can become absolutely ridicules!

This past winter was an unusually wet winter and spring so we never got into the low water situation, so the fishing frenzy never happened.  A usual trip was 20 to 30 bass and a mix of Peacock .  Oh how I look forward to those every cast days of a few years ago!

[ironbjorn]

I'm the most excited for: Spring fishing. A long, hard winter will do that to a northern fella.

 

My favorite season for catching is: Summer fishing. This is when I catch my most bass.

 

My favorite season for fishing is: Fall fishing. It's beautiful looking, it smells good outside, and the cooler but comfortable temps feel good. The random day here or there where the bite explodes during a window in which I'm there is great too.

[gim]

As others have stated, the prespawn is probably the most likely period for big fish.  We still have a completely closed bass season here during the majority of that time period, so I am unable to legally take full advantage of it.

 

Fall (not right now, its not really fall) is usually very good.  When the water temps are 50-60 degrees, my bass fishing can be lights out in the fall.  That usually occurs sometime in early to mid October.  The nice thing about fall is that the pressure is a fraction of what it is in the spring and summer.

 

Winter is my off season.

[Rockhopper]

The quick rundown (april through june favorite for bass)

 

Jan - skiing

Feb - steelhead and skiing

Mar - Mexico vacation and bass

Apr - bass

May - lots of bass

Jun - lots of bass

Jul - steelhead and bass

Aug - Family vacations and bass

Sep - elk

Oct - deer and bass

Nov - pheasant

Dec - skiing