By Jay Striker
Baits made for Spring Fishing!
Baits made for Spring Fishing!What Do a frog, a dog and a Red Eye Shad have in common? They are all made for spring fishing.
One of the things I enjoy most about early spring is knowing the potential exists to catch a huge bag of fish. However, early spring can humble some of the very best anglers. Why? Because springtime fishing can sometimes have you committing to false positives. I’ll explain a bit later.
Using the baits that will get you a limit quicker is one key to success. The baits I use in the springtime are tried-and-true lures. If I could only take three baits in the spring, they would be a Strike King Red Eye Shad lipless crankbait, a Strike King Top Water Sexy Dawg, and a Strike King KVD Sexy Frog.
There will be times when locating fish will take a lot of time. When there’s a need to cover a lot of water, a Strike King gold and black Red Eye Shad is the ticket. The Southeast’s clear, deep lakes require long casts because the fish can be easily spooked. A lipless crankbait allows for that. More importantly, it is very efficient in covering water. I like using a lipless crankbait around grass bottom areas where I can rip it from the top and then let it flutter back down. Fish tend to hit it on the fall shortly after tearing it out of the grass.
Another spring staple is the KVD Sexy Dawg Topwater bait. This bait also covers a lot of water and is great for targeting fish that show themselves by feeding on top early in the morning. The key to this bait is to keep it moving even if fish blow up on it and miss it.
Many times you need to fish every level of the water column before leaving an area. If you catch a fish and don’t explore the rest of the water column, you might end up with a false positive. Just because you catch one fish doesn’t mean you’ve found a pattern that can be counted on. Delve a little deeper, and you might discover you’ve overlooked the predominant pattern because you thought you had something figured out.
Frogs are another bait that tend to produce this time of year. I throw a Strike King Sexy Frog around cover, where there is brush hanging over the water and around rocks, docks or just a big open grass mat. There is just something about a frog a bass cannot stand.
Spring offers the opportunity for some of the biggest bass of the year. Learn to fish these three baits effectively, and there’s a good chance you’ll haul a heavy sack of fish to the stage.
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