Understanding the February to March Patterns

Now that we have arrived into the February time frame finding fish is all about understanding what takes place as the fish migrate toward the spawn. The first thing one must understand is that this time of year the bass become a by-product of their biological clock; in other words their body clocks are telling them the spawn is near and they must prepare themselves to spawn. This natural agenda has the bass on the move looking for spawning grounds as the days warm moving forward.

What you will find is that the deeper water near the spawning grounds becomes areas of staging for the largemouth bass. In other words they congregate outside the spawning grounds where there is a proximity to the bedding flats and move up and back on a continual bases around the staging areas. The interesting point in this time frame is that the sunny days drive the fish into these spawning grounds for some brief period during the day; the muddy red bottom areas of the lake warm quickly on the sunny days and become feeding areas for the bass. It also needs to be pointed out that many different weeds produce the same results like milfoil, primrose, stump and wooded areas or lily pad stems all warm when the sun is out; the reason for this is some areas of the lake have hard bottom ground and these hard bottom areas are where the bass like to spawn.

It is important to remember that the staging is not a large movement by the fish, it comes in small numbers and to find the fish in this scenario one must use search baits as his main presentation to get the big females to bite. Certainly as time moves on through the pre-spawn the numbers of fish moving around the bedding areas increase, but in the early stages like this February time of year is a small nucleus of fish making catching vs. fishing sometimes tough. Understanding these concepts is a big part of pre-spawn fishing, using it to your advantage is another!