Okay, here's a great question from a viewer. "Does the pre-spawn always happen at the same time every year?" Well, that's a really good question. You know, for me, it really depends upon a couple of things. First of all, I think the pre-spawn is triggered by the lunar periods. And what I mean by that is not so much the full moon, or anything like that. What I mean by is the days are getting longer and longer in the spring.
Really, towards the end of winter, the beginning of spring, there's a trigger point at which the length of day, that sort of is a point in which the fish say, "Okay, now I need to start thinking about moving to shallow or start feeding up and getting ready for the spawn." So there's...basically I think that's the only one point that is true to form that happens the same year in year out. In my neck of the woods, I'm northern climate. I'm up in Washington State. That tends to happen towards the middle of late February.
I've noticed it's...to me, that's when the fish are really predictable in the wintertime, you know where they're gonna be. And right about that time of year, that's when the fish vacate those areas. I know they've moved a little bit shallower and I start to catch them a little bit shallower. That may be different from where you live, because water temperature and the weather play big roles and especially in the region that you're at, you may have warmer conditions, that may happen a lot earlier.
Say in Florida, pre-spawn actually kind of begins in November actually or December. Whereas, if you're way up north in a lot colder temperatures, say up in northern Michigan, they may not happen til March, right? April. So it really depends on the location that you're at. And even then, fish are influenced by the current conditions. So when you have lots of fronts coming through, the water temperature drops rapidly, you have major storms, that affects the fish, they'll pull off from, you know, they may be into pre-spawn mode, but then they'll go deeper and they hibernate basically for a while until conditions get better.
So it can be a real challenge. And you know, there's no real answer like, "Hey, mark on your calendar, this is when pre-spawn begins." It's not that easy, it's not that simple.
But don't get frustrated by it. Instead, see that as a challenge, and it's yet another piece of the puzzle in figuring out the bass fishing puzzle. When you figure that out, it gets that much more rewarding because then you're catching fish and you've figured it out, and that is more exhilarating sometimes than actually catching fish. So stick with it, and you're gonna catch a lot of fish.
I hope those questions help guys. You know, that's the whole point of this is answering your questions. You can email me right down here. I've got it listed here, or you can hit me up on our Facebook channel, Bass Resource Channel, or on the forums, and I'll try to get to your questions next time. In the meantime, for more tips and tricks like this, visit BassResource.com.
