Confidence Lost...

[Paul Roberts]

Any indications your fish are onto spawning areas yet? From other anglers or things you've seen? Catt and FFD say it's unseasonably cold there. Yes? Curious here: Do you have any water temps btw?

Do you know where prime spawning areas are? Does any shoreline suffice in your lake?

[Catt]

Was unseasonably cold here 

Cliff hang in there, locations are right, timing is off!

[Paul Roberts]

Yeah, the general location sounds fine (from 1000miles away lol). And Cliff said some people ARE catching!

I'm wondering if the bass are still grouped up tight, and not yet distributed across that location. I see this in my small waters. The first movements shallow are of bass in tight groups. Later they'll be "all over the place" (males first I believe) and the females remain grouped for awhile longer.

What happens is anglers fish the right areas but lose confidence when they don't connect with what's close to a "needle in a haystack". Sometimes you just have to stumble across them. Later, when the fish are better distributed, the "bite is on".

That's my guess as to a possible explanation. Maybe it's more a small water thing, as my bass popns are much lower than big waters can produce. But I would expect that anywhere bass need to have certain winter habitat parameters met --have certain limitations--this is a likely scenario.

Advice: Keep casting. Find those clusters. You aren't doing anything wrong, except by not continuing to search diligently for what might be areas the size of a living room, or a kitchen table.

[Red]

Was unseasonably cold here

Cliff hang in there, locations are right, timing is off!

Well that makes me feel better, to know I am at least in the right spot.  Two weeks ago the water was 61 in one spot I was fishing, and the guy told me that was the warmest water they found.  Last weekend it was 55 in the same area, however that was earlier in the day.  I am fishing from a buster type boat so I can't go really far.  Usually I will drive straight to where a creek comes in, about half way across that bay, fish it, then fish all the way back to the ramp.  I was going to post up a pic of the area but I can't figure out how to get the google earth pic saved and such.  It is lake Waco in Waco Texas.  If you look at the north end of the lake you see where the river comes in on the west side, I am fishing from the northern center of that bay all the way back to the ramp on the east side.  Thanks again!

Cliff

[Branuss04]

It happened to me last year... so I stopped bass fishing for awhile... a long while actually.  Just wet a line for the first time in 6 months 2 weeks ago.

[Catt]

Cliff if you look at the last 12-15 pages of the "So y'all want to learn Toledo Bend?" thread we have fought the same problems since mid-January. The bass were where they should have been but they just refused to bite any lure we threw, myself and many others came to the conclusion it was because of the unseasonably cold water. But the problem was not the water temperatures effect on the bass but rather it's effect on the shad. Many Texas lakes saw an unusually large shad kill which resulted in the bass having an easy meal; the bass simply stayed put and gorged themselves on dieing shad. 

I will not go as far as saying ignore surface temperatures but over the last few years I'm less impressed with "surface" temperature as a factor when looking at pre-spawn bass. Some of the best fishing (catching) this year has been in water temperatures that were by human standards less than desirable.