By Scott Norton
If you have been catching bass and all the sudden it is like the fish have disappeared, what is happening is those females have backed out and are now in recovery mode. This will last a few weeks, but you will have multiple waves of bass doing this. They will not eat after laying their eggs because the spawn takes a lot out of them. Remember each wave will take a few weeks to recover so it is not like 2 weeks go by and all is recovered.
Slowly they will recover and split up into two different groups. One group will go shallow and another will go deep. So, what do you do during the recovery period? There are a few options to choose from: one is fish for the fry guardians, and option two is target the females that are in groups that have already recovered or go after the ones that spawn late and have not laid the eggs yet.
The fry guardians are the males that are protecting their brood. These bass will hang out in the shallows where the fry are more protected. If you decide to go this direction, make sure you get those fish back in the water so they can get back to taking care of business. Just know if something bad happens to a guardian the fry are fair game to all the predators and you will lose a lot of the next generation so manage your resources well.
Let us talk about baits to use in these situations. If you are going to target the females going deep there are so many baits that will do the job. You will need to use baits that are subtle like baits with no rattles and subtle action. Strolling is a very good technique to use if you have front facing sonars. Other baits like lipless cranks, swim-baits, spinner-baits, Senkos, and blade baits are a great choice. If you are targeting shallow bass use swim-baits, glide-baits, Senkos, jigs, flukes, spinner-baits, and top water baits. These should cover all the bases for most of your situations.
You will have the shad and the bluegill spawn to look forward to as well. Once these bass are ready to feed, they will wreck house going after these fish trying to fatten back up. This is a fun period if you catch them feeding in this moment. To get into the action you will need to be on the water early before the sun hits the water. If you catch one of those days where it is rainy and overcast, you could possibly fish this way all day. I hope this helps. Go have fun and turn someone on this wonderful sport.
Scott Norton is a Western North Carolina native. Born in Asheville, N.C., he is a long-time hunter, angler and weekend warrior.