The post spawn can be a weird time to fish for everyone. The bass, having just finished their spawn, will move to nearby cover and hunker down. It can wear the patience, of any seasoned bass angler, down to the bone. The fish just seem to stop eating and dissapear. Places on the river, where you normally see bass roaming or on cover, there is nothing. Just water. This frustrates the best of bass fisherman out there.
Don’t let this bring you down because these bass can be caught. It just takes putting something in their face that really angers them into striking. I ran into this problem a few days ago on the Ocmulgee River in Georgia. The fishing had been fast and furious for a few weeks, catching big, fat prespawn bass. They were tearing our jerk baits up. And all the sudden the fish were gone. I threw everything in my tackle box at them, but it just seemed as if they were gone. No fish anywhere. So I put on my bread and butter bait, a 5″ bullshad swimbait.
I began tossing it into the shallow, swift water, that shoal bass love to inhabit. There was a large boulder that came almost to the surface and had swift water moving over it. Standing in my Coosa I was able to see right down under the water to these rocks. I let the bullshad was over the rock and into the eddy behind it. I twitched it, which turns the lure arou d 180 degrees, and out from under a hole beneath the rock, appears a monster shoal bass. It swam out and I saw the gills flare as it inhaled my swimbait. Aha! There was still bass in this river. The big shoalie began tearing drag and splashing as it didn’t really have anywhere to go. It was just too shallow. The fish went back under the rock it came out of, and nearly stayed under there. I just kept pressure on the fish and it finally came out. I quikly sat down in my Coosa and grabbed the net. I scooped up the beast and began celebrating. It was a beautiful 21″, 5lb 2oz shoal bass. A trophy for sure!
We snapped some pictures and soon we were watching that big girl swim off into the crystal clear waters of the Ocmulgee River. I love Kayak Bassin!