By Scott Norton
Winter is on its way out and spring will be here before you can blink an eye. This means pre-spawn. This is nature’s most important role in the renewal of life. During the spawn, there are three seasons involved :pre-spawn, spawn and post-spawn. So much happens in the spawn that sets the pace for the rest of the warm weather fishing.
Once the water temperatures start to continually rise, pre-spawn will kick in. Here in the mountains, the lower elevations will start sooner than the lakes in the higher elevations. This is very important when planning a trip. You can catch fish at any stage of the year but if you are planning for the spawn you will want to select a lake that is experiencing pre-spawn patterns. Once the water starts to heat up, then you can move to lakes higher up the mountains. You can actually prolong the spawn this way and use it to your advantage.
Before you start this season make sure you are not dealing with needed maintenance on your boat and new line on your reels. Once this pattern starts, things change quickly, and waiting to fix a boat or even just gear failures can really mess up the season. Remember, maintenance is done in the winter especially because of the rush that happens in a marina. You do not want to wait until you can get worked in. If you are a new fisherman you will learn the hard way. It is also important to set up your tackle boxes with lures that are relevant to the water clarity and temperature. You do not want to be mixing and matching on the water. Label your boxes so you can go for the lures that fit your situation.
Dealing with cold water, you will rely on your graphs a lot more this time of year. Do your homework and learn your graphs. Bass are still deep and you need the electronics to be your eyes. You can learn an older method that works as well if you do not have graphs, but it just takes longer.
The more experience you have, the more fish-catching you do. It comes down to what works for you and how to avoid things that slow you down.
Scott Norton is a Western North Carolina native. Born in Asheville, N.C., he is a long-time hunter, angler and weekend warrior.