When To Start Bass Fishing!!!!!!!

[senco lover]

I live in the pacific north west and I am 13. I need to know when i should start trying to fish my local lakes for small mouths, and what lures to use.

[MaineBassMan]

Welcome to the forum! I would go out as soon as you legally can. My favorite time to go for smallmouth bass is as soon as the ice goes out all the way to the end of June actually I chang my mind its pretty darn good all the way until the water freezes back up, lol. With the easy winter here, I have a feeling our ice will go out mid to late March which is really early for around here.

My early season lures of choice are suspending jerk baits. You will have to vary your pause lengths between sweeps until you find what presentation they like. Sometimes I jerk the bait in real fast keeping a watchful eye out for any trailing bass. Once I spot them I will pause the bait and see what it takes to entice a strike, sometimes just the pause is all it takes. Other times I throw it out and just make slow steady sweeps of the rod, not a jerking motion, and then I will let the bait just sit there for 10-20 seconds. Most of the time when you go to make the next sweep you will feel the rod load up with a strike.

My next favorite early season lure is an 8-9 foot diving crank bait. The key with this is to make sure that you fish it shallow enough for it to make contact with the bottom. If you can't feel the bottom move in a little shallower until you do. For the retrieve I cast as far as I can and then I crank as slow as I can and still be able to keep contact with the bottom. A lot of times you will feel the crank bait knock a rock or piece of wood and that will trigger the strike nine times out of ten.

My other favorite early season lure is a Texas rigged tube bait with a heavy bullet weight, heavy enough to keep it on bottom. I like to make long cast in 8-15 foot of water parallel to the shore. You will have to vary depths until you locate them. Then all I do is drag it a slowly as I can. I only move my rod tip about 6-8 inches then I pause and drag it another 6-8 inches. This takes a bit of patience but usually pays off pretty good. As May rolls around and the water warms up a bit I like throwing white or chartreuse spinner baits. With these just vary your retrieve speeds and depths that you bring it through, smallies can’t resist.

After the spawn and the water gets very warm they tend to move out into deeper water. Good luck and keep us posted.

[WCCT]

You can catch them up here year round if you have access to the lake. Lake Washington and Sammamish are your best bets for year round smallmouth. The one benefit of living on this side of the mountains is we do not have to worry about lakes freezing. I know once the ice gets off of Banks lake in eastern Washington, it is lights out on the smallies. Over here now, I would say fish deep, 35-60' with football heads and dropshots. Fish slow and keep at it and you will find fish.

[senco lover]

Thanks, I will try that.