Well, it’s that time of year again. The fish are moving up and are starting to cruise the shallows. I have already seen a couple of bed fish, and have seen some pretty aggressive males. With the full moon this week, there should be a whole wave of new fish coming up and starting their migrations into the spawning areas. With this in mind, I have started to put together a bed bait box, and I thought I would share my thoughts.
Like everything else, I try to keep my approach simple. But unlike other fishing techniques I think it is more important to keep your gear ready at a split second’s notice during the spring time. I usually have 3-4 rods rigged up on the deck of my boat for fishing beds. All bass on beds act differently. I like to move in very slowly, and watch the fish long before I even think about casting. There are a handful of things I am looking for:
Location: This will determine how you set up an approach to fishing a particular bed.
I’ll swim the bigger baits through the area and see what kind of reaction I get. If the fish are super hot, sometimes you’ll catch them right off the bat. Most of the time, though, this is not the case. This is the reason I like to keep those rods on the deck, rigged and ready to go. This lets me get another bait in the water in that critical moment, when a fish may be worked up. A lot of time you will have to play around with different baits, to see what really makes them mad. Some of my secondary baits include a jig, a Huddleston Huddlebug crawdad, a Senko, and sometime even a small worm or drop shot. I like to use big stout hooks with all of my bed baits. Because you usually only get one chance at a hook set.
Drive the hook home pretty hard, and make sure you always have the net ready. These bass are usually pretty unhappy.
I really like bed fishing because it can be such a head game between you and the bass.
