By Jay Striker
Springtime is a unique time to fish. It can bring with it some of the best a lake has to offer, and sometimes the worst. I have been fishing in the spring when it looks like the lake is about to overflow. When I see this situation, I am excited, because it’s time to “beat the bushes.” Beating the bushes means that it’s time to start looking for fish in brush piles near the back, or in the back, of the coves.
You may ask, why go to the back of the coves when the lake has risen? The primary reason I have noticed is that when a lake is rising, the fish tend to move shallower. The same philosophy holds when the lake is falling, however, the bass tends to move out deeper.
The process of locating bass in brush piles is easily done using sonar on your electronics. The echo from the sonar will produce a clear picture and definition of what brush piles tend to resemble. Since it is the springtime, you can expect fish to be using the brush piles for different reasons.
One such reason bass use them in the spring is because of its location. If the brush pile is at the front of the cove heading back to the back of a creek, then the bass will use this brush pile as a staging area. This location, if found, will hold some fish. Once you know what brush you want to fish, spend a little time fishing it from all different angles with all different baits. One of my favorite baits for this type of fishing is a 3/8 ounce Fish Head M1 Jig because it has a six-sided head and allows me to work it out of cover much easier with little to no snags.
My last piece of advice is to fish the brush that you can see, the type of brush that we call “overhang” brush. This brush is the type that is alive and is literally hanging over and into the water. This type of brush is perfect for bass to hide in and ambush prey as it comes by. So when the water is rising, don’t leave the cove without fishing the brush that hangs over into the water, as it will most likely hold fish, and perhaps the fish of a lifetime.
So let me close by saying that beating the bushes is one of the things I do in the springtime when the water on the lake is rising or the lake has taken on much rain. The bush piles and overhanging trees should not go un-fished. In fact, I would suggest that you fish each one from all different angles.
Good luck and tight lines.
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