It won’t be long before bass start moving toward the shallows and staging for the spawn. This is the time of the year when the most big bass are available to an angler because there are only a relatively few places where they will spawn. Find these places and you might catch the fish of a lifetime.

When I’m starting to look for bass in early spring, there are a couple of clues that help me zero in. First of all, I find the sheltered pockets where bass are likely to spawn and look for the type of grass that tips me off that it’s got the type of hard, sandy bottom they prefer for beds. In Florida near where I fish, I’m going to be looking for, say, arrowplant or those round, hard reeds a lot of people call buggywhip. These grow in good bottom, but I won’t start fishing there. Depending on how early in the year it is, I’ll start fishing for prespawn bass out in deeper water, hopefully where bass are staging in hydrilla or Kissimmee grass. Later in the season I’ll move up.

The other clue to follow is the moon phase. A full moon or new moon is prime time for the spawn in Florida’s shallow lakes. If it’s about three days before the full moon or new moon, the bass will be in the outside cover near the spawning flats. Understandably, a lot of guys just go fishing when they can, not when the moon is right, and they catch fish. But for optimum results, find the right cover in the right pockets, and go when the full and new moon phases are peaking.

— Castrol pro Mike Surman of Boca Raton, Fla.