Post-Spawn Bassin’ Blues?

Last weekend I spent a day in the boat with professional bass angler Mike DelVisco. DelVisco is a full-time pro on the Bassmaster Tour as well as the ABA Grand Slam and PAA Tour. In addition to competing, he also conducts seminars at many popular sport shows all around the country. You’re most likely to run into him at your local Texas Roadhouse Restaurant giving away prizes and teaching kids about bass fishing.

For me, late May can be a tough time because a lot of our fish are played out and are in that dreaded post-spawn transition. However, DelVisco and I had a great day on the water. This was due in part to getting to fish out of his brand-new Phoenix bass boat, a sweet ride that’s one of the best deals on the market today, and also because he was able to get us on some good fish.

While I was expecting to fight off lockjaw, he explained that though bass might be off the beds, the local shad population was still at it and that meant post-spawn bass would be nearby and restocking their fat reserves.

“A lot of anglers have a hard time adjusting when bass come off the beds, but a little understanding of what’s going on under the surface can still get you on some fish,” said the Texas Roadhouse pro angler. “Just look for fish to be suspended out off sandy, rocky points in the areas where threadfin shad come in to do their thing.”

DelVisco employed a Yo-Zuri shallow-diving crankbait to mimic the frenzied shad as they headed to the bank. Our day’s bag of largemouth included several chunky males and one big sow that topped the scales at more than 7 pounds. According to DelVisco, capitalizing on the shad spawn is a window of opportunity.

“It’s a daylight bite,” he explained. “Right at first light, the shad will be on the banks spawning, and the bass are right behind them. Sometimes you get bites for an hour, some days two, but once the sun gets up it’s pretty much over and time to go find another pattern.”

Cloudy or windy days that block out sunlight may extend the action during the shad spawn, but don’t expect to get much action if you aren’t on the water at first light or late in the afternoon just before the sun goes down.

For more tips from bass pro Mike DelVisco, check out his bass bytes video series at www.bassbytes.tv

Phillip Gentry

pgentry6@bellsouth.net

 

Picking the Right Docks to Fish

Depending on where you’re located across the country, now is the time most crappie anglers look forward to. Crappie are either just before, right in the middle or coming off the spring spawn. In any case, now is one of the best times of the year to find crappie hanging out around boat docks. However, like most other things in life, not all boat docks are created equal. That bears the question — how do you pick the best dock to fish?

“If I had to pick the most important feature of a boat dock to fish for crappie, it would have to be how close is it to deep water,” says crappie pro Mike Walters. “If a dock has lights and rod holders all around it, a lot of guys always assume that’s a great place to find crappie because more than likely the owner has brushpiles or stakebeds nearby. The truth is, if the dock isn’t located in the right area in regard to depth, all that structure isn’t going to change a bad location into a good spot.”

Walters should know. As a national tournament angler and member of the B’n’M pro staff, he fishes lakes from Florida to Oklahoma, including the lakes around his hometown of Troy, Ohio. One of his favorite tactics is shooting docks for crappie, so he’s learned the hard way how to cull so-so docks from great ones.

“If I’m new to a lake or area of a lake, I’ll take a topographic map and look for places where the creek or river channels move in close to shore,” Walters says. “The dock doesn’t have to have deep water under it but I believe it has to be close by. You can have a great-looking dock way back on a shallow flat and it may hold a few fish, but I’ve never known crappie to travel a long way across a lot of shallow water to get to a dock.”

Once he’s found a dock he wants to fish, Walters pulls out his trusty B’n’M rod. With the accuracy of a Wild West marksman, Walters puts his jig in places most people never fish. But he also has a little secret that helps him both slow his presentation and detect bites when the going is tough.

He uses a grape-sized ice float on the line above his jig. This allows him to shoot docks without worrying about the jig getting hung up in structure under the dock.

“I rig the float like a slip-cork,” Walters says. “Crappie typically aren’t real deep this time of year, so I’ll adjust the stop to just a foot or so up the line. The other advantage is that the cork and jig stay together when shot and then separate once the float hits the water. Crappie are pretty aggressive during the spawn, so detecting a bite is pretty easy. But if the going is slow, watch the cork for any movement that indicates the fish is moving off to the side or coming up with the jig. Leaving it dead still works great too. Sometimes that jig just dangling over a nest for several seconds is more than that crappie can stand.”

For more tips and tactics from Walters and other B’n’M pros, check out the B’n’M website at www.bnmpoles.com.

Send me your fish pictures and stories, I’d like to see them.

Phillip Gentry
pgentry6@bellsouth.net