Tactics for largemoth bass in spring

Is there a best month in the year to catch Ohio largemouth bass? Not really. These green and white fighters will bite in every month, and I've caught them up to 10 pounds in all 12 of those months. But the weeks of spring are one of the prime times to catch a whopper, and for good reason. One, the water is slowly warming, and since these bass are cold blooded their metabolism is picking up and they're more active. Two, spawning time is soon to come, and they're beginning to seek more food to fuel their eggs and milt. If there's a question it's how do you catch some, and there are several answers for that. The easiest way to catch largemouths now is in a farm pond or small lake. These warm fastest, and see hungry fish roaming first. I've caught a lot of bass in these small waters, and usually caught them in one of three ways. The first is to just walk around the ponds borders and cast small spinners and crankbaits. My favorite spinner is a pearl grey Roostertail in 3/8-ounce sizes. Their lead bodies cast like a bullet, the spinner is flashy, and by varying retrieve you can fish them shallow or deep. I like small Rapalas too, the sinking kind, and I've caught a lot of bass on four or six inch plastic worms, usually flavored. I like them best with twister tails that look line finning bait fish tails as they move. There are other artificials that will catch you fish, but these three are really all you need. Final choice is live bait, if you're feeling lazy, and just want to loaf along shore, enjoy that warming sunshine and watch the wildlife from frogs and muskrats to singing blackbirds while you wait for a bite. Top choice here is minnows, and I catch mine from a nearby creek using a little hand seine available from most sporting goods stores. Three to four inch chubs work fine when lip hooked and tossed out below a bobber and splitshot to swim three or four feet below the surface. Use two rods and concentrate in the shallow end of the pond or little lake where water warms first and bass are attracted to patrol there. In big lakes there are best choices, too. Some bass hunters just launch their boat and start casting the shoreline. That will work eventually, but if you like to make a nice catch of these hard fighting and high leaping gamesters, you'll ignore places where bass seldom go, and concentrate where they do. Long, shallow bays won't produce much, because bass don't like to travel far for their meals, so check your map of the lake printed from Division of Wildlife websites, and seek out those where deep water is close to shore. The best will have good shoreline cover in the form of rocky areas and downed timber, and if there's a little bottom structure so much the better. I've found a number of these, and if there are boat docks along them to toss offerings beneath, you've found an ideal hotspot. Top baits now are pig and jig combinations, and you can either use real pork on the jig or flavored plastic skirts, and plastic worms will work fine, too. Fish them a little slower because these spring fish don't like to chase hard. Here's a final thought — release most or all of your catch in either small waters or large. Bass aren't bad eating, but they're not great, and catch and release will let them continue controlling panfish as well as growing bigger. And that's what you want. Dick Martin is a retired biology teacher who has been writing outdoor columns for over 30 years. You can reach him at richmart@neo.rr.com