Spawning beds

[honkytonker26]

Anyone seen any yet?

 

[fishinvol]

Nope. With the full moon this weekend, it should really kick them in gear!!</p>

 

[churly]

I'd bet my left leg that some where on the Chick there is a nest being built or guarded and it will continue from now till June with big waves durring the next 3 full moons. I saw fish on beds on the G in late February year before last and there were some on beds in early June that year as well. I think as far as fishing goes, your better off to catch the waves of females that will be moving up in the pre-spawn phases before they go on beds. before to long, you will be able to catch fish in all phases of the spawn and I like to look for the females that haven't done their thing yet, then the fun starts when the open water bite heats up. I'm interested to see if we are still able to catch these heavier fish we've been seeing, once the post-spawn kicks in.

 

[MrWiskers]

The 6.6 I got last week had a raw tail. Looked like the fish had been fanning. I caught the fish out of about 2-3 feet of water that was dry land last night. Gotta love TVA.

 

[polo-dog]

The water temp is still a bit low for large numbers of bass to be in the spawning mode. The major spawn should be the first full moon after the water temp is 65 degrees. There will be some before and some after. Spwawn too soon and a cold snap might kill the fry, spawn too late and there may not be enough time to grow up before the cold weather comes or the bass fry that were spawned earlier can compete better because they are bigger. Sometimes spawning earlier can be an advantage but if there is a killer drawdown or cold front those fry don't make it. Very few fish will truly spawn this full moon. Most of the shallow fish will be males this month with the females shallow near deep or on structure/cover in deeper water, say 8-12 feet. There are some really big fish still to be caught on a prespawn pattern for the next month or so. Good luck.

 

[Buoy-Master]

Bucks on the flats in creeks and the Sows right near....Yea, its very close and that full moon should turn things up a bit. </p>

 

[jason]

I've caught both spots and largemouth off beds this week on the lower end of the lake.

 

[ole blue]

I was told by a good friend of mine that the 2 smallmouth that was wieghed in the sportsmans tx had already laid out. One of them was 6#'s and the other was 5#'s. He said the fish looked really poor.

 

[bassncorey]

I know it might not help much with Chick/Nick but I fish a small pond close to my house sometimes. When I fished it on Thursday I saw a least three bass making beds. I caught the males but didn't see the females I watched one male around a dock and it looked like he was trying to get everything ready for the female. I am going to try and go in a few days and see if they have moved up yet. I just hope this cold front/dogwood winter weather don't affect them to much.

 

[B-Pro]

There some up on the bed on Watts Bar.

 

[team-d]

I agree with Churly, there should be a pretty good wave of fishing trying to do their thing in the next few days with the full moon coming on. It's getting late in the spring and they will get up and make an effort even if the water temps aren't quite "ideal" - those bass can't read all the literature on ideal temps, depths, locations, weather, etc, like we can - I think we tend to overcomplicate it at times. There will be several waves of fish spawning for the next couple months. Another thing to remember is some of the fish won't spawn out all at once due to weather, water levels, etc - they may start their thing and get moved off by a major cold front like the past few days, then pick it back up again once it all blows over. Up in the NW I've caught smallmouth on beds in early April when water was in the low 50s all the way into July some years when the water was in the mid 70s.

 

[beetlespin]

All of the fish Joe and I caught saturday on Nickajack were already spawned out.

Lance

 

[Guest]

I have a question for you, we caught several fish the other day, (see post) all still had eggs with no damage to tails, found beds with nothing anywhere near them. no bucks, slicks, or life of anykind. beds where in 2 to 6 ft of water. the water was stained as always, but we came in quiet and nothing spooked off or anything. It was like they got made then got abandoned. Any ideas?emoScratch