Head Off Bass on the Move

Five or six years ago Guido Hibdon won a tournament at Lake Eufaula by sitting in one spot and casting crankbaits and soft plastics over and over again to a point that had a couple of big rocks off its end. In his case, it was more of a postspawn deal where bass were leaving spawning areas. As they moved out, they passed the point and stayed there for a while to feed. As Guido caught fish, others would come up and replenish the spot. So it was an ideal scenario, and Guido knew what to do with it.

I try to remind myself of that tournament when I’m looking for fish in the spring. But it’s not just a postspawn approach; it works in the prespawn too, when bass are on the move toward their spawning areas and stopping here and there along the way. When you consider the typical lake, it will have creeks in the backs of coves where bass go to spawn. How far along the spawn is governs my approach and where I start looking for fish, but I look for those spots like Guido found and really work them over. These don’t have to be big features, either, because other fishermen probably already know about them and have fished them. Sometimes it’s the small, subtle spots leading to spawning pockets that produce best, especially in a tournament.

A pinch point is one of my favorite places to fish in prespawn. It might be wood cover on the backside of a point that juts out at an angle at a creek mouth, a narrow opening or channel to a big spawning flat, or maybe a bridge across a creek that has been riprapped on either end. What I’m looking for here is some irregularity in that spot that bass can use as an ambush point or just relate to as they stage and wait for the water to warm up. This might be a sharp bend in a creek channel with a big sunken log sticking out over it, or brush that has washed up against a piling on the deep side of a narrow bridge. What I want to have is some sort of water flow, whether it’s power generation current or even wind current, and something where prespawn fish can stage and feed.

It’s important to remember that fish at a pinch point will hold in a position to take advantage of the current and any baitfish it might bring them. This means that you don’t just make a couple of casts at isolated cover or a change in bottom configuration and move on. You fish the “spot on the spot” with several casts from different angles before giving up on it. It might be one particular cast on that riprap, bridge piling or point that will do the trick. For this, I’m using a shallow-running crankbait, a vibrating jig, a football jig or even a shaky head.

Even if it’s a dry run, if you stay in the area and have the time, you also want to come back to that spot and try it again later. Depending on the timing you might be dealing with fish that are in a sort of stop-and-go mode as they move up.

Find a pinch point, find a specific irregularity on that pinch point and start casting. If you get on one that replenishes, you can have some fantastic fishing.