Springing to life
Spring is the bewitching time for heavyweight largemouths and crunch time for the 1 million-plus Texas bass anglers who chase them. Like casino junkies lured to the craps table, thousands of fishermen across Texas will spend the next 60 days in hopes of making a lucky cast that will result in a career bass.
Some will invariably be luckier than others. Ask Ronnie Arnold of Karnack. He'll tell you he'd rather be lucky than good any day.
Arnold was fishing at Lake Caddo on March 2 when he hooked and landed one of the biggest bass reported in Texas this year. The fish weighed 15.1 pounds. It hit a crankbait in about 5 1/2 feet of water.
Arnold subsequently donated the fish to the Texas Parks and Wildlife's ShareLunker program. It's the first Caddo bass over 13 pounds turned in to the program since 1998.
Roughly 48 hours later, Lady Luck found her way to Steven Vela's bass boat at Lake Somerville. Vela was fishing within sight of the Lake Somerville Marina last Wednesday afternoon when he cast a jig into about 7 feet of water. He got a bite and reeled in the biggest bass ever caught from the 11,460-acre impoundment. At 13.6 pounds, the pending lake record is Somerville's first ever ShareLunker entry.
Here is some more big bass fodder on these two giants that is sure to perk some interest among big bass nuts:
* Arnold caught the 15.1-pounder from the same location where another big bass broke his line about a month earlier.
* Vela's 13.6-pounder came from the exact spot where his friend, Bobby Vanwinkle, hooked and lost a huge bass at the boat three days earlier.
In each case, were they the same fish the anglers had experienced run-ins with earlier?
There is no way to know for certain. But one thing is for sure: Both anglers have found sweet spots for big bass. Since neither fish had spawned, my guess is both bass were laid up around a "staging area," waiting for water temperatures to warm sufficiently so they could move shallow and spawn.
The big bass caught by Arnold and Vela are not the first Texas giants reported this year. They won't be the last, either.
March typically produces more heavyweight bass in Texas than any other month. More than 40 percent of the 464 ShareLunkers (bass weighing 13 or more pounds) reported since 1986 were caught during March. February is the second-leading producer with about 23 percent of the entries. April is third with about 16 percent.
Now is when Mother Nature beckons big largemouth towards the shallows to perpetuate the species. Bass anglers are inherently more comfortable fishing near the shoreline than in deep water, so the stage is set for big bass opportunities over the next two months.
Ken Cook's observations over the years have taught him plenty about spawning bass. A former fisheries biologist from Lawton, Okla., Cook says there are quite a few anglers who believe that all the bass in a reservoir spawn at the same time.
"That is a big misconception," Cook said. "In reality, only a small percentage of the fish will actually be on beds at any one time. It is natural to fish for bass that you see on a spawning bed along the shoreline, but when you do that, it is important to realize the highest percentage of fish are probably going to be behind you."
Cook believes most lunker-sized females spawn at night, then retreat to the nearest habitat edge in slightly deeper water during the daylight hours. He said the same fish may move in and out of the shallows multiple times over the course of several days before she is done spawning.
In retrospect, the 14-time Bassmaster Classic qualifier thinks anglers can increase their chances of connecting with a big fish by targeting "staging" areas situated in relation to spawning areas.
"One of my favorite techniques is to fish just outside the actual bedding area around the nearest habitat edge," he said. "It could be an inside grass line, timber line, ditch, fence row or creek channel. It is even better when you can find an intersection of those edges, like where a fence row crosses a creek."
Cook pointed out that staging bass often choose to suspend between the top and bottom of the water column at midrange depths. That is why some lures work better for exploiting them than others. Two of his favorites are the Storm Suspending Wild Eye Shad swimbait and a suspending jerkbait like Rapala's X-Rap.
Bass cruising around potential bedding areas, or those actually locked onto nests, demand a different approach.
One of Cook's favorite tricks for enticing cruisers is to rig a Berkley GULP Sinking Minnow "wacky" style on a Tru-Tungsten Weedless Drop and Shake hook. The bait works best when fished in relation to grass edges or flooded bushes.
Waco pro Alton Jones is among the best in the business at catching bass on spawning beds. According to the 2008 Bassmaster Classic champ, stealth is one of the key ingredients to catching bedding bass consistently.
"Stealth is extremely important when sight fishing for bass, especially when it is a big fish that weighs upwards of 8 pounds," Jones said. "Big fish don't get big by being stupid. They get big because their senses are keen. They are very aware of their surroundings, and they have learned to avoid fishermen. A big bass is just like a big deer. It behaves differently when it knows you are around."
Jones claims he can catch as many as 60 percent of the giant bass he finds on spawning beds on the very first cast. His secret is making long casts to avoid being seen by wary fish.
"The farther you can stay away from the really big fish, the better off you will be," Jones said.
If Jones comes across a big fish that refuses to bite a lure pitched or flipped at close range, he will note the location and return to the spot an hour or so later. However, on the return trip he will set up at a considerable distance from the sweet spot and cast directly to it using a 7-inch Yum Dinger rigged weightless on an 11/0 hook.
"By the time I get my line tightened up, the fish is usually swimming off with my bait," Jones said. "I can't tell you how much money that one long cast has put in my pocket over the years. I've done it from Texas to Florida to New York to California."
Longview pro Jim Tutt knows a thing or two about reading bedding bass.
According to Tutt, you can learn a lot about a spawning bass by watching it. Each bass has a different personality. Some are super aggressive and easy to catch. Others are spooky. A few are downright crazy. Most are catchable if you are willing to spend the time watching and waiting.
One of Tutt's favorite pretournament tricks is to tie on the actual lure he will use once the competition starts -- minus the hook. If he spots a respectable bass that might do him some good, he will invest some time trying to get the fish to bite before the tournament gets underway. If a bass is particularly large, he might spend an hour or more waiting for it to pull the trigger. The idea is to aggravate the bass' mood, not to catch it. That is the reason for using a bait with no hooks.
"I call it priming the bite," Tutt said. "If I can get a bass to bite one day, I can usually go back to that fish and catch it on the first cast the next day. It works more often than not."
Another trick is to bait and switch. Tutt says it can be real effective for targeting bass who might spook in clear water.
"I might use a spinning outfit with 8-pound test line and a small bait like a tube to agitate the fish until I can tell it is ready to bite," he said. "The instant I am convinced the fish is ready, I will reel in quickly, pick up a heavier flipping stick with braided line and throw right back in there. The heavier rod and line can be especially handy if the fish is bedded around bushes or logs."
Matt Williams' e-mail address is mattwilliams@netdot.com.
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