The Outdoor Line Forum

The local lakes are starting to warm up and the bass are starting to play!

I am targeting fish in the 25-40' range and will start to move shallower with the warmer weather. Look for rocks and wood or a combination of the two as they hold heat and food! The Lowrance structure scan takes any and all guess work out of the equation. Look for flats adjacent to deep water where fish can move up and down depending on the changing weather.

I like to target these fish with 1/2-1oz football head jigs or a drop shot as these presentations work well for deeper water. Twin or single tail grubs and beavers/creature baits are my go-to's but really any soft plastic can work as long as it is presented properly. Small drop shot worms in the 3-5" range in browns or greens work well. Feel the fish out and see how they would like it and work off of any success or bites you have to help dictate how to work your presentation.

Post up any questions regarding early spring bass and I will be glad to help!

Right on Nick!
I see you have finally figured out the Photoshop 7.0. (jk) Nice fish

Screw the bass I wanna learn more about Photoshop

Can't wait to hit some smallies with ya Nick. Hands on fishing at it's best

Looking forward to an early spring full of bass and hopefully an early spawn this year if temps continue to climb. Thanks for posting the report, informative.

The lakes were warm over the weekend but the bite was not! I spend Fri, Sat and Sunday on 4 different lakes and only caught a handful of fish. The weather was nice but it had a negative effect on the bass fishing for most. I talked to several anglers who had difficulties getting any fish to bite, including a tournament where 14 boats were entered and only 1 fish was caught by all of them combined!!!

Wait for the next change in weather and I think it will turn these fish on!

I marked fish from 15-40' but getting them to bite was a different story. The ones I did manage to catch, were pretty decent quality, including a 5lb Smallmouth. Focus on slowing your presentation down when the bite gets tough, it made the difference this weekend.



A few more pics from the weekend.




Good luck out there!
Nick Berto

Well, so far this spring it has been hit or miss for me. Somedays are better than others and the fish seem to be just as confused about the constantly changing weather as we are.

A local open tournament drew 13 boats on Lake WA on 4/13, a low tournout with many other tournaments going on over the weekend. The weather was WINDY to say the least which made fishing challenging but like always, someone rises to the top and figures it out!

I was able to find a few takers but did not adjust as good as I should and ended up with 3 fish for just under 12lbs, good enough for 5th place. Loosing fish did not help either! I did manage to catch a bigun' though, a 5.39lb Smallmouth, good enough for big fish of the event along with another dandy fish that was probably pushing 5lbs as well. We caught our fish on a combination of football heads tipped with creature style soft plastics and tube jigs, both in green pumpkin/dark green, in 15-25' of water in combination of rocks/wood.



For those looking for some quality bass tackle, take a stop at Three Rivers Marine and Tackle in Woodinville, they got all the goods you need inclding Daiwa rods and reels!

Great report Nick

You better watch it you might just entice big Nelly into jumping in your boat

Oh yeah... I want in....
I mean heck, I get to stand in the bow whilst Nick puts me within casting distance?
I may just be posting a bass report soon!

Decided to take a step away from the Bronzebacks and chase some Largemouth. I got word that a small northern lake was heating up and the fish were really snapping so I tied on some jigs and spinnerbaits and made the voyage, rain/wind or not I was going!

And it paid off with some really nice fish ranging from 2-7lbs!

Slow falling, bulky rubber jigs work great this time of the year. The big profile and slow descent is hard for a big greeny to resist when presented properly. Here is a custom TW Jig, tied by my good freind Tag Watson, that one had to eat, and eat it did!


Ended up catching a load of fish with lots of good quality ones mixed in. Here is a solid pair.


By mid day, the fish started to move away from the shore and we had to search for them. We used swim jigs and spinnerbaits and got right back on them including finding a big one!


The Largemouth are biting and will only get better as we start to have some warmer weather in our near future. With the opening of some of the smaller lakes (trout opener), there will be even more oportunities to catch some of these bucketmouths! Grab your Daiwa combo and hit the water!

Nice work Nick!
Berto the Bass Pro... It's got a nice ring to it!