Kayak Fishing Game Plan: Pre-Spawn

Kayak Fishing Game Plan: Pre-Spawn

Spring is here!  Well, sort of.  While we still have one week of winter left, technically speaking, the bass in Arizona's desert reservoirs don't seem to know it.  As early as February water temps started hitting that magical 55 degree mark that so many anglers use to gauge the romance level of those little green beauties.  Well the fishing is picking up, and now is as good of a time as any to dive into one of the most productive seasons of bass fishing, the Pre-Spawn.

There are countless numbers of pre-spawn articles out there that discuss what lures and techniques should be used this time of year, and how you can go about locating the fish.  I would suggest you read as many as possible, but keep in mind that not everything you read necessarily applies to Arizona, or to kayak fishing.  The goal of this particular blog is to help synthesize all that information and discover how it applies to the desert kayak angler.  But first, a quick rundown on the behavior of bass this time of year:

Bass Behavior:

Bass, like many other species, rely on patterns and habits throughout their life.  Understanding these habits will give the angler insight on where bass will be found at any given time.  Spring time is especially predictable due to the spawn.  You see kids, when two fish love each other, they get together and make a wish...  Ah screw it, we're all adults here, they bang.  The water heats up and so does their sexual appetite.

Bass will begin to move up shallow over the course of several weeks.  As this transition into Spring progresses, they will begin to relate more heavily to cover rather than structure.  In the winter, bass will move down deep and sit atop underwater humps and points.  Imagine a game of King of the Hill.  A bass wants to be up high on that hill while inactive watching over a large deep area.  They don't feed as often in the winter and this underwater structure gives them the opportunity to go into standby mode and just wait for an easy meal to come by.  The warming waters speed up the bass's metabolism leading to more feeding activity and the bass will leave this deep structure in search of food and a lady-friend.

To find these migrating bass, check out a contour map of the lake you're on and look for areas of tightly grouped contour lines that lead in the direction of a spawning flat (generally in a cove that ranges from five to 15 feet deep).  Below is an example:

I like to think of this migration as the first "phase" of the pre-spawn.  Depending on how far away the winter home is from the spawning grounds it could take the bass up to two or three weeks to complete this migration phase.  The important thing for you to know is that they are hungry right now!  They may still be deep, but they are active and on the move.  They need to eat to complete their trek.

Phase 2 is what many anglers refer to as "staging".  Once they reach the outer edges of the spawning flat, they will wait until the time is right to move up on beds.  This generally begins happening when the water temp is around 60 degrees, but there are so many factors that the best way to know is to get up there shallow and start looking for them.  Below is a diagram that shows how a bass might stage and move up to beds.  Notice how in this diagram the fish relates more to cover (brush piles, stumps, ect. than it does to structure like in phase 1).

Here, A and B represent some sort of cover like a brush pile.  This is where a bass will hang out to feed while waiting for the right time to move up.  Target these kinds of areas and you'll find them.  Don't be afraid to really get into the middle of this cover with something weedless like a Texas rig or jig.  C is the nest.  You will probably see smaller males cruising up and down the bank looking for a place to build their nest.  These fish are very tough to catch if you can see them, but relatively easy if you stay back off the bank and pound them with small reaction baits.  Don't fall into the trap of trying to sight fish these fish, you'll just get frustrated and leave empty handed.

D in the diagram above is the pre-spawn pot of gold.  D represents the female.  The big girls are smart, they stay in bed and let their boyfriends do all the work.  They stay in the deeper areas, usually just deep enough to be out of sight from the anglers above the surface.  I like to start shallow and figure out how clear the water is.  If I have about 10 feet of water clarity, then I'll back out to about 15 feet and look for ledges and drop offs on my depth finder.  This is where the females will be cruising around and feeding heavily gearing up for the spawn.  Big lures are important here as these fish are looking for easy calories.  They won't be in the mood to chase down small baitfish, it's not worth it to them to spend that energy for a small meal.  Think big and slow and you'll have a shot at a pre-spawn monster.

Pre-Game:

A successful day of kayak fishing starts the days before your trip.  As I discussed in a previous post, a kayak angler needs to be able to find the fish before even getting to the lake.  Mapping website like the Navionics Web App, and Google Earth are a great place to begin your "internet pre-fishing".  Using what we know about bass behavior this time of year can help us pinpoint which areas to focus on.  As the old saying goes, 90% of the fish are in 10% of the water.  We've got to be able to find that 10% as quickly as possible so that we spend most of our time fishing in productive waters.

Let's take a look at a real life example: Lake Pleasant, just a short drive north west of Phoenix.

As you can see, this is a big lake.  You can't cover this entire lake in a weekend with a bass boat, so where do you start with a kayak?  One thing to focus on is water temperatures, we want the warmest water possible.  While looking at a map won't tell you how hot or cold something is, we can put the pieces of the puzzle together to tell us which areas will be warmer than others.  1.  Because of where the sun is this time of year, the north side of the lake will get the most sunlight and warm up the quickest.  2.  Shallow water warms up faster than deep water.  3.  Areas protected from the wind will warm up quicker than windy areas.  Due to these factors, we can eliminate the southern half of the lake and focus on the shallower northern arms.

So now what?  Each one of those three main arms are basically individual lakes to the kayak angler.  Pick the wrong one and you're going to have a long day as you won't be able to fire up the outboard and check out the next one over.  This time of year, I'm looking for as many small coves and pockets as possible, mostly shallow spawning flats with deep water near by.  I'm not as concerned with bottom structure as I am with visible shallow cover during the pre-spawn.  Bass will spawn just about anywhere that's shallow enough, but the big bass will claim the obvious places.  Look for big boulders, brush piles, overhanging trees, ect.  The same kind of cover that feeding bass will use as ambush points, spawning bass will use as defensive barriers to help protect their nest.  So let's pick an arm and zoom in.

Let's zoom in more....

Ah, now we're talking.  On the right side, we have a shallow cove filled with trees and other cover.  That's where the bass are headed, so that's where you should start.  As we come out of that cove we see a long shallow point.  This is the perfect area for bass to hang out in the weeks before spawn to rest and feed up before getting down to business.  On the left we have dirt roads.  That's a great sign for kayak anglers, roads don't just show up on their own, this area is clearly accessible as long as you have a capable vehicle to transport your kayak there.  (On this point, make sure you find several potential areas before heading out.  Google Earth won't show you the roads that have been closed off, or it may look like your Honda Civic will make it out there, but the "real life road" may be much more rugged than what it appears to be from a satellite image.)

Baits and Presentations:

When you're rigging up your rods the night before it's important to consider as many factors as possible.  Will it be windy, or calm?  Is the lake muddy, or clear?  Are the bass Trump supporters, or are they #feelingthebern?  Will it be overcast, or sunny?  These conditions will effect the finer details of your lures like weights, depths, and colors, but there are four general techniques that I'm going to prepare for every time I head out durning pre-spawn:

Deep-Diving Crankbaits

Regardless of the conditions a deep diver is going to catch fish.  There is one requirement however, you MUST fish it slow!  When thinking of crankbaits, most of us think of fleeing bait fish, deflecting off hard cover, creating reaction bites as the bait flies through an ambush point.  That's not the case here.  We are targeting big hungry females who are just "waking up" from the cold depths of the lake.  These fish aren't going to be in the mood to chase down their breakfast.  They want a large plate of pancakes slow rolled right by their pillows.  Big and slow is key when hunting for these big pre-spawn females.

There is one major factor that kayak anglers have to take account of when fishing a deep diver, and that is the weight of your kayak.  After just a few casts, you may notice your boat positioning has changed.  The drag of these heavy baits is enough to pull you along quite a bit, and that leads to several negative consequences.  The most obvious is that it will pull you off your spot.  Not a big deal if you're cruising down a shoreline, but if you're targeting a specific piece of cover or structure, you'll have to readjust each cast.  Secondly, your bait won't run as deep as it is intended to with the less resistance of a light kayak pulling on it.  And finally, your hooksets won't have the same force behind them as the kayak will give quite a bit when you pull.

So how can we counter these effects?  Anchoring is one option, but that's generally quite a hassle that most of us don't want to deal with, especially if we're covering water quickly to find fish.  The quickest and simplest thing you can do is to cast off to the side, perpendicular to your kayak.  Your kayak will have much more resistance as its pulled through the water sideways than it would nose first.  Another option is something I call Troll Casting.  It's a hybrid of casting and trolling a lure.  I make a long cast out behind me, past my target.  Before engaging the spool, paddle forward a few strokes to gain some momentum, then engage the reel and begin reeling slowly.  Super slowly.  Remember, you still have the speed of the kayak moving forward too, so you should reel even slower than usual.  Warning:  This may be against the rules of tournaments that don't allow trolling, if so make sure no one sees you do it.  ;)

Suspending Jerkbaits

The bigger, the better.  Remember, these fish are still moving pretty slow and they want big easy meals.  I prefer baits with three treble hooks on them just because they are bigger, but the smaller variety will still catch fish too.  Deeper is also better in most situations as most of the bigger fish will still be closer to the bottom in deeper water.  A bait that can suspend in 8 feet or deeper is ideal during the pre-spawn.

The first step is making sure your bait suspends properly.  Most jerkbaits will float, even the ones marketed as "suspending jerkbaits" will slowly rise to the surface.  I will usually add an extra split ring hanging off the split rings on the front two hooks.  If that's still not enough weight, I will put larger hooks on.  If that still doesn't cut it, I'll find a new brand of jerkbaits.

Working the jerkbait from a kayak can be difficult for two reasons: being low to the water, and the wind.  If you can stand in your kayak, do it!  To give the bait the best action, you want to pop the rod tip downwards.  That's not easy to do while sitting down at water level.  If you can't stand, you can still get by with popping the rod to the side.  Just be careful not to get yourself in an awkward position to where you can't set the hook when you get bit. 

The bigger problem is the wind, and that leads us down to a Catch-22 of catching fish.  Jerkbaits typically work great in the wind.  In fact, many people will only throw a jerkbait when it's windy.  The problem here is obvious: kayak fishing sucks in the wind.  It's nearly impossible to hold your position and work the bait at the same time.  Long pauses are important when fishing jerkbaits this time of year, and if you're being blown across the surface, your bait isn't going to pause, it'll get dragged along with you.  If you don't have the "Hobie advantage" of hands-free paddling, you need to anchor.  A drag anchor won't cut it.  You need to be absolutely stationary.  Rather than deploying an anchor, I prefer to tie off to buoys, it's just quicker and easier.  In many of our Phoenix area lakes, many major ledges and points just happen to be marked off with buoys.  You could travel along a long buoy line tying off to each one, fan cast the area, move to the next and catch fish all day.  I could give you examples, but you're better off to check it out for yourself.  So next time you're out on a lake, check out the depth changes along buoy lines, or just check it out on a contour map.

Jigs

If you haven't noticed yet, the theme of pre-spawn is big and slow.  What's bigger and slower than a jig dragged along the bottom?  I'll tell you what is, the building of the Great Pyramids of Giza.  However, gigantic monuments built in honor of ancient leaders aren't the best bass fishing lures.  So let's just stick with jigs.

If you're catching fish with red lips (quite common this time of year) then the fish are zoned in on eating crawfish.  A jig can be one of the best crawfish imitators there is.  If you're catching fish on cranks or jerkbaits and the bite dies down, before moving on to a new spot, give the jig a try.  If you were catching fish, then there are fish in the area.  Rarely do they move from one area to the next that quickly, so they are still home but have just wised up to your presentation.

I work a jig very little this time of year.  The deep water is still quite cold and nothing down there moves around too fast.  Hopping and swimming a jig is just going to spook off any bass, it's simply unnatural and the fish won't want to touch it.  I use a retrieve that's just one degree above dead sticking.  I cast it out to a target, maybe across a rocky point, or on top of a ledge, then I let my drifting kayak slowly pull it along.  You'll feel it getting caught up in rocks and what not but just shake it free and pull it over the top.  Don't let it pop free and hop off the bottom, just keep slowly dragging it.  When you get hit you may feel a slight tick, but most of the time a fish is just going to calmly pick it up and you'll lose contact with the bottom.  When you stop feeling those rocks, set the hook!

Spinner Baits/Chatter Baits

Everything that applies to deep diving crankbaits applies to spinner baits and chatter baits.  Honestly, if feel that the differences are more angler preferences than the preference of the fish.  There's really only one reason I prefer cranks over blades personally, and it's really quite silly.  But it's storage.  I use a Plano box system for tackle storage, and spinners just don't fit in there as nicely as cranks.  However, I keep a handful with me just incase I run into two conditions.  1. An algae-filled mucky bottom.  The kind of bottom when you have to pull green slime off your crankbait after every cast.  The single hook on a spinner or chatter bait will come through that gunk much cleaner.  2.  Muddy water.  Like, really muddy water.  When visibility is less than a foot, I'll use a chatter bait, or a spinner with a Colorado blade.  The reason is because I can load the plastic trailer up with scent, and the blades put off more vibration than cranks.  The less you can rely on sight, the more you have to focus on the other senses to get the fish's attention.

So there it is, my game plan for kayak fishing in the early spring.  As I put the finishing touches on this article, many fish are already up on beds as the water temp is on the rise.  But here comes the most important hint for spring time fishing:  THE PRE-SPAWN IS NOT OVER JUST BECAUSE FISH ARE ON BEDS.  They don't all spawn at the same time. They move up and spawn in waves, usually three to five waves per year.  This is nature's way of protecting the species and preventing an entire year's class of new bass from dying in the case of some catastrophic event like a flood or sudden cold front that kills the eggs.

Sight fishing is fun, and it's an easy way to catch one of the biggest fish of the year.  But don't let it consume your fishing trip.  It's easy to get pulled in by a bass on a bed and then realize that you've spent an hour on a fish that ultimately won't take the bait anyway.  Sight fishing is one of 500 ways to catch a fish this time of year.  So go hit those migration routs and pull in big fish after big fish while your buddy sits up in the shallows hunting those little males protecting the nests.

Tight Lines!