Tips For Catching Post-Spawn Reservoir Bass
BY DARRELL TAYLOR
For a brief period following their spawn bass go on a feeding spree, eating anything that fits in their mouth. Some of their hapless prey includes bluegill, crayfish, minnows, newly hatched ducklings, shad and snakes.
Each year largemouth bass go through a biological cycle that includes preparation for the spawn, spawn, a brief recuperative period, a feeding spree, and then when the water warms to its summer temperatures, a movement to deep water.
By the time you read this column, the feeding spree will be in full force, which means there isn’t much time left to take advantage of the bass’ hunger. While they aren’t terribly selective, some lures and locations work better than others. During this period bass can slam lures so hard they nearly jerk your arms off. 

In reservoirs, anglers should look for points with flat shallow areas six to eight feet deep in front of them and fish with lures like an SX Shad colored Bill Norman Deep Little ‘N’. Two other great colors for the Little ‘N’ are Sun Sour Grape and Sun Lavender Shad. Other crankbaits that catch bass on flats are Berkley’s shad-colored Flicker Shad, Rapala’s parrot or hot-mustard DT-10 and Storm’s Wiggle Wart in shad, crayfish or bluegill colors. Parallel cast where possible, retrieving the lure across the five to 10-foot depths. The lure must bump the bottom to be effective this time of the year because the bass are usually holding on structure with their noses tipped slightly down.

Where parallel casting isn’t possible, angle cast toward the bank, trying to land the lure in two or three-feet of water. Reel quickly for a few feet until the lure bumps the bottom and then slow down, reeling just fast enough to contact the bottom frequently. Hard plastic crankbaits aren’t the only lures that produce and flats in front of points aren’t the only locations that hold fish during the post-spawn.

In lakes where docks are prevalent, bass have learned through survival that it’s safer behind docks than between them. Anglers who aren’t skilled enough or prefer not to fish behind docks and under walkways leave those in relative safety.
For anglers who pursue that group of fish, a variety of jigs and soft plastic lures are effective. Of course, cables, trees and seawalls preclude traditional casting methods, instead skipping, pitching and flipping are acceptable techniques.
Anglers can choose from hundreds of soft plastic lures in a myriad of colors today and one thing is sure, more new colors and styles are just around the corner. The same applies to jigs and their pork and soft plastic trailer combinations.
There are a number of tried and proven soft plastics and their colors. First, there is the venerable Berkley 10-inch Power Worm. It works best Texas-rigged and fished behind docks or in submerged brush around docks. Confidence colors often chosen by anglers include red shad, tequila sunrise, sour grape and black with blue fleck.

Another productive soft plastic lure includes a Texas-rigged Zoom eight-inch lizard in watermelon-red flake. Some anglers like to peg their 1/4- or 3/8-ounce bullet weight to the line so it can’t move, believing pegged weights snag less in brush. Methods to peg a bullet weight include a round wooden toothpick or Bass Pro Shops rubber stops made specifically for that purpose. Arkie’s Salty Crawlin’ Grub,  Chompers’ Skirted Twin Tail Grub, Yum’s Woolly Bug and Zoom’s Brush Hog
are other favorite Texas-rigs. Un-weighted soft plastics that sink, like Bass Pro Shops’ Double-Dipped Tube, Berkley’s five-inch Sink Worm and Yamamoto’s Senko are effective behind docks also. Use a spinning rod and cast sidearm to skip these lures under walkways and overhanging tree limbs. Let the lure sink to the bottom, then move it forward a few inches and then let it sink again. Watermelon-red flake is a popular color for the above plastics. Jigs are preferred by many and as you can imagine, they also have a vast array of choices for anglers. Some popular jigs are Bass Pro Shops Enticer, Booyah’s Baby Boo and the Eakins’ Jig. Tip these with a soft plastic chunk or pork rind and it’s ready to fish.

Most anglers fish soft plastics and jigs too fast, lightly snapping the rod tip to make the lure hop across the bottom. While this can be effective when bass are extremely active, that isn’t always the case. Sometimes a retrieve that is so painfully slow you can actually count rocks on the bottom will produce more fish – it’s always worth trying. In a month or so, the largemouth bass will move to cover or deep structure where they will be difficult to locate and catch. So, let’s go fishing now, while the bass are shallow and on a ‘hot bite’.