With the warmer temperatures that will soon blanket the northern states brings forth some excellent early spring bass fishing opportunities. Often in the early spring you can load your boat with bass if you know where to find the fish and what lures to fish once you locate them. There are several techniques that you can employ to catch these lethargic fish in the early spring months just after the ice disappears from your favorite lake.

One of the first things you must do is locate fish in the spring is to locate the warmest water in the area of a lake that you are fishing. One of the easiest ways to determine this is simply by looking up and seeing where the sun is hitting the banks or use your temperature gage to determine where the warmest water is. There are several locations that bass seem to gather in the early spring months including rocky banks, bluffs, flats, and main and secondary points.

Steep banks such as rocky bluffs will hold heat better than any other type of structure and is easily fished. Fish will suspend off of these rocky bluffs or hold tight against the rocks. There are several techniques you can use to fish these locations, but the best technique seems to be is to fish suspending jerk baits, spoonbills, and crankbaits. To fish these suspending lures use a jerk, jerk, pause technique or a sweep then pause technique. I have found that the jerk, jerk, pause technique works better on the days where the sun is out and the water temperature is warming and the sweep then pause technique works the best when the weather is less than favorable. Also try pausing your bait for longer time periods often these fish will sit and watch a suspending lure for a long time period before deciding to strike. Your pause could be as long a 30 seconds or a short as a 2 seconds depending on how aggressive the fish are. There are two main ways to position your boat when fishing deep water bluffs, you can position your boat straight out from the bluff then cast in to the bank or parallel the bank casting along the bluff. If the fish are hugging the bank then paralleling the bank seems to work the best.

Large flats with wood is also a excellent place to find fish in the early months of spring since the wooded flats will hold heat and flats attract baitfish in the spring. The best flats are ones that receive the suns light during the afternoon hours. Fishing flats in the spring can be fantastic if the fish move up to feed and they can easily be caught with jerk baits, spinnerbaits, and soft plastic jerk baits. The fish that can be found on the flats are feeding on baitfish actively, and will often hit a faster moving bait. When fishing a spinnerbait on the flats make sure to bump every piece of structure that you can. This will often trigger a reaction strike from a bass that is lying on log, stump, or rock. When fishing a jerk bait on a flat use the jerk, jerk, pause technique to imitate a injured baitfish.

Main Points and Secondary Points are also excellent places to find bass in the early spring months. Fish will move to these locations to feed on baitfish that is attracted to the points. Fish generally suspend off these locations and can be caught with suspending jerk baits and spinnerbaits. Points with some type of structure such as a tree, stumps, chunk rock, or brush piles are excellent spots to load your boat with bass in the spring. Fishing can be fast and furious on points in spring due to baitfish randomly moving to the point which triggers the bass to feed all at once. If you hit a point that is holding bass you can easily catch tournament winning bag very quickly.

In conclusion, fishing in the early spring can be very rewarding and also can be very difficult to locate feeding fish. In the early spring months cold and warm fronts keep the barometer moving pretty regularly and can make fishing tough to say the least. However if you manage to get out on the lake when there is a steady warm front and use the techniques mentioned above you are sure to have a excellent day on the water.