Spring is the magical time when largemouth bass come up shallow and start thinking about their annual spawn. From March through May, these bass are very accessible to the bank angler looking to catch their biggest largemouth of the year. Largemouth behavior can be broken down by which stage of the spawn they are in, and not all largemouth will be in the same stage at the same time. Pre-spawn, spawn, post-spawn, and bass feeding on bluegill beds: they all behave differently, but they can all be targeted from the bank this time of year.
Pre-spawn
During late winter and early spring, as the days get longer, bass start thinking about their annual spawn. Largemouth will start to move out of their wintering areas and set up on main lake points, creek channels, and drop-offs near spawning flats. If you have had successful winter fishing and know where they spawn, an easy way to find these areas is to fish the structure between the two. Largemouth start to get more aggressive, and this can be the time of year that big baits with drawing power start to shine.
Spawn
I'll start with the disclaimer that if you disagree with spawn fishing, skip this section. From the perspective of biologists, particularly in the Southeast where I fish, fishing for largemouth during the spawn has no effect on the population of fish. If you live somewhere with a closed season, follow local laws. Fishing for spawning fish can be some of the most fun and most challenging fishing of the year.
To find their beds, look for the light spots on the bottom. Often there will be a small male in the middle of the light spot, and from time to time a visibly larger female nearby. Not all beds will have bass on them, and fewer will have a female nearby, but just because you can't see the bigger female doesn't mean she is not lurking.
The key to catching these fish is making her mad enough at the lure that she decides to take it off the bed. The smaller male will do all the work at first, but if your lure keeps coming back to the bed and he isn't getting rid of it, the female will come in to clean up. The challenge is getting the male to pick up and spit out your lure enough times, without getting hooked, that the female decides to come in and eat it. That takes patience and skill: not hooking the male, and not scaring them off the bed with a bad cast or by not being stealthy enough. It can also take a long time to catch the female. If you find the right fish and are patient, it can sometimes take hours to land the big female, but it is worth it in the end for some of the biggest bass of the year.
During the spawn you will also see packs of roaming bass near the spawning fish. They are pre- or post-spawn largemouth there to eat the bluegill that are trying to raid the nests. A great way to target these fish is with swimbaits that imitate bluegill. Glide baits are great here: a slow-moving but big target that draws in these roaming bass. Other big swimbaits work as well, especially if you can see the cruising bass and lead them with the swimbait so it passes in front of them. Speeding the swimbait up for a game of cat and mouse can trigger their predatory instinct to chase it down.
Post-spawn
After the bass are done spawning, they need to recoup the energy they used, and the best way they can do that is by feeding up on bluegill and shad. Watch for the roaming packs. Leading them with swimbaits is an effective method, as are other conventional lures higher in the water column, such as wacky-rigged Senkos and topwater lures. These bass often make loops of their hunting paths, and timing those paths is crucial to putting a lure in front of them. Taking the time to watch where the fish are going and putting a lure in their way can result in some of the most exciting fishing of the year.
Bluegill beds
As the bass wrap up the spawn, the bluegill start setting up beds for theirs. The bluegill that have been feeding on bass eggs stick around the same areas, and other bluegill move in and start fanning their doughnut-shaped beds. Finding bluegill beds is easy: look for the honeycomb of light spots on the bottom. Bluegill bed in the same areas as bass, in the backs of coves, near wood cover, stumps, laydowns, docks, or any other hard or sandy bottom.
Once you find active bluegill beds, sit back and watch to see whether bass are hiding nearby or coming in groups to hunt the beds. Often the bass sit on the closest cover and wait until they all decide it is time to roam onto the beds and hunt vulnerable bluegill. The bass roaming the beds can be targeted with something like a fluke or a topwater while they hunt, but the most reliable way to target them is by fishing the cover they hold on, just off the bluegill beds. If you don't see the bass, find the closest cover and start breaking it down. You can throw whatever your preferred lure is around these areas. The bass are targeting bluegill, but you don't have to match the hatch; they will opportunistically eat anything that looks like easy prey.
Topwater lures do a great job of mimicking bluegill and other prey around wood cover, and if you fly fish, big poppers work well. Other things to try are wacky-rigged Senkos, Texas-rigged plastics, flukes, frogs, spinnerbaits, bluegill swimbaits, or anything else that presents well around the areas they are holding. Keep it simple and cover water. These bass roam and can be spooky, so the more bluegill bedding areas you hit, the better your odds.
The bluegill bed pattern can last all summer, but it is generally best for about a month after the bass wrap up their spawn. As the water warms and the majority of the bluegill finish spawning, some bass stay shallow and keep eating the bluegill that push up to spawn through the summer. Other bass go deep and chase the shad, or the bluegill that are done spawning and have moved deep for the summer. For bank anglers, continuing to target bass around bluegill beds pays off all summer. The key is looking for beds that are still active, since many are abandoned after the first bluegill spawn.
