largemouth bass

Question
2 questions--how do you get the big female bass off the bed. I see 5 an6 pounders everywhere and they will either take the bait out of the hole and drop it or jst sit there,
My last question---I use worms mostly, what size hook should i use 2-3-4 aught orsomething else and if you have a special preference.
Much thanks for your time,
Mike

Answer
Mike; To be completely honest with you I have never caught a bass off a bed.  Anything I might know about this would come from either watching someone else do it or from what I have read over the years.
I can give you some of those things and they might help.

First let me tell you that I am not greatly opposed to bed fishing for bass here in the Deep South but would be questionable about it further North.  I am pretty much opposed to taking the male bass off a bed however.  My reason for this is that even if you return the fish to the water within a minute after catching him that nest has been decimated by the predatory sunfish that are always hanging around the nest.  The female leaves the nest shortly after laying her eggs so catching her does not harm the nest as another female will come along and take her place.  Once the male is away the sunnies who have been trying to sneak in and have a meal of eggs even when the male is there will gorge on them while he is gone.  He pretty much keeps them at bay while he is there even though those sunnies will get a few eggs but not enough to hurt.  By the time he gets back after being caught the nest is empty.

Now how to get the big females to bite.  First let me say your best bet is to go fishing a couple of weeks before they go on the beds.  This is when the big females are waiting for the males to fan out the bed.  Those females are waiting, usually nearby at the first depth break outside the spawning grounds and they are feeding to prepare for the rigors of spawning.  That is when I love to fish for big fish in the early early spring.  If you find them often you can catch a whole bunch of them and they are in peak condition and fight like the devil.  I have caught 15 or more in an evening all three pounds up to eight pounds at this time and they do not have to be coaxed to hit.

But if you really want to fish the bed before the female leaves the bed try using either a lizard or some other plastic "critter" that looks threatening to her eggs.  Worms do not offer the threat that some of the other "critters do".  If you see the big fish on the nest cast past the nest and bring the lure right into the nest.  Leave it there just jiggling it a bit now and then but do not move it out of the bed.  She will often pick it up and carry it off as you describe but if you throw it right back time after time she may become angry or frustrated or whatever a fish does and decide to eat it.  When she is carrying it away the first few times do not try to set the hook as this may frighten her.  Just let her lay it down then return to the bed.  Reel it in and cast it right back just past the nest and again pull it into the nest.  I have always heard that color does not make a great deal of difference when using this method but I am sure the color that you can see is the most important.  If you can see it and move it into the nest you have a better chance of irritating her.  If you can't see the bait you can't put it in the right place time after time.   This is one of the reasons that I do not fish the bedding fish, I am simply too impatient to do what is necessary and do not want to spend an hour trying to get a single fish to bite.  Especially if I have caught many in the pre spawn period.  Besides this all fish do not spawn at the same time so there are always fish waiting to spawn later or some may have spawned earlier and these are catchable so why spend an hour or more trying to coax one fish to bite when you may be catching half a dozen just as big if you look for them.

I do not know where you live and fish so things may be a bit different.  I live within 100 miles of the Gulf of Mexico so we do not have a whole lot of really cold weather.  I do not think our water temp went below about 50 degrees this past winter so I catch fish all year around.  Don't misread me.  I do not catch fish every time I go out.  I got skunked last evening but the evening before I hooked four fish around 3 lbs. in about an hour and a half and none were on beds.

The size of the hook I use is usually much smaller than most of the pros use.  Actually I often use a size one, not one ought but just size one. I believe that a size one with a Sproat bend will hook and hold most bass and the finer wire hook will stick easier than the heavier one. I make sure they are extremely sharp though.  If I am using a really large worm or lizard etc. I may go up to a 1/0 or in a few cases even a 2/0 but not often.  I use a 7' spinning rod and 8 lb line.  I use 6lb line if I am fishing open water but in this lake there are so many stumps and I learned the hard way that six pound isn't enough in the stumps.  One day I was using six pound test line and catching fish in the 12-14 inch range when suddenly one much bigger came up out of the water.  She certainly would have been 8 lb. and she went straight around a tree stump and goodbye fish, hook, worm sinker and my language got pretty bad.  This was shortly after I moved to Seminole and I learned my lesson.  I have caught eight pound fish on 8lb line since.  The extra two pounds makes a lot of difference.  I use 14 on two casting rods and 17 on two more.  My biggest bass so far has been 9 pounds with another on the next cast just under 9 lbs.  This lake has a lot of fish that size and a few much bigger but I haven't landed one of those yet.  I am still working on it.

I hope this has been of some help to you and I hope you can get one or more of those 6 pounders you see on the beds and also get you some big ones just off the first drop outside the bedding area.
Thanks for calling on me to answer your  question.  If I can be of future help please call on me and I will do my best to help you catch more and bigger fish.

I am
Jack L. Gaither  (JackfromSeminole)
Lake Seminole, Georgia