I rounded the corner and there he stood, posturing like a human version of a great blue heron. Power Poles down and eyes fixed on the shallows, Todd Driscoll was clearly on point. There was a bass tending a nest down there and the angler was watching the fish closely to get a read on its mood.
“Probably a 3-4 pound male,” Driscoll said. “He’s not locked on, but he keeps circling back. He’s getting pretty agitated.”
I knew right then the fish was good as caught. Driscoll is pretty crafty at snatching bass off spawning beds. The only question was how much time he was willing to invest to close the deal.
Ultimately, it didn’t take long. A few pitches later, the angler’s rod bowed and the thick-shouldered bass rocketed out of the water in a failed attempt to shake the hook. Driscoll flashed an impish grin as he released the fish and stowed the shallow anchors to go looking for another one.
“I love doing this, man…. it never gets old,” he said.
Anyone who has spent much time tinkering around with bass on beds is sure to agree. When it comes to fun fishing, sight fishing ranks right up there with slinging frogs or topwaters for head-hunting bruisers. For guys like Driscoll, it’s a boyish rite of spring that can never get here soon enough.
Sight fishing is finesse fishing in its purest form. It centers on casting to fish you can actually see, then aggravating them into taking a lure.
Sometimes sealing the deal can be so easy that it hardly seems like a challenge. In other instances, a bedding bass can be such a tough nut to crack that fishing for it might seem like a total waste of time.
Sight fishing can work just about any time you can see bass. It is most effective during spring, when Mother Nature beckons the fish to the shallows to build “nests” for spawning.
The male does the work, while the female lies in wait in slightly deeper water. A courtship begins once the timing is right, usually once water temperatures stabilize in the low 60s.
Bass are territorial around spawning beds, especially once eggs are present. The idea behind sight fishing is to make a bass think an artificial lure is a predator attempting to steal the goodies.
Reports of bedding activity started rolling in on some Texas lakes during the unseasonably warm weather several weeks ago, but cooler temperatures in mid-March seems to have slowed the process in lots of places. Depending on where you fish, April should be a pretty good month for lookin’ at ‘em.
Here are few sight fishing tips to keep in mind: * Clearer The Better: The best lakes for sight fishing are those with relatively clear water. The clearer the water, the easier beds and fish are to see from a distance. A spawning bed will usually stand out as a light or dark spot on bottom in stark contrast to its surroundings.
* Best Conditions: The best conditions for sight fishing happen when skies are clear, the sun is bright and winds are light. Clear skies maximize sunlight penetration and makes beds much easier to see from a distance than in cloudy skies. Wind creates surface ripple that can hamper your vision. If the wind is blowing, protected pockets and shorelines will be the best bets. Use sun to your advantage. It’s easier to see with sun at your back rather than looking into it.
* Quality Eyewear: Wearing good polarized sunglasses will reduce sun glare and help you to see beds, fish and other objects several feet beneath the surface that you otherwise will not be able to see. Sunglasses will also protect your eyes from the sun’s harmful rays, bugs and other flying objects like weights and hooks.
Buy the very best sunglasses you can afford, preferably those with a wraparound frame design that follow contour lines of the face to help prevent peripheral light from entering. Try on different frames to see which fits best. Lens color also makes a difference in cloudy or sunny conditions. A good all-round choice is Costa’s Sunrise Silver Mirror color.
* Learn to Read the Fish: You can tell a lot about how easy fish is going to be catch by the way it acts around a spawning bed. Some fish will race in and inhale the bait on the first cast, while others are more reluctant to commit.
A fish that swims away and stays gone for considerable amounts of time won’t be near as easy to fool as one that hangs pretty close. A bass will invariably go nose down on a bait before attacking it, but may not eat it without some coaxing.
I recently had a threepound male nudge or bump my bait at least a dozen times before finally sucking it in. The fish had likely been caught and released before. Bedding bass are usually the easiest to catch soon after they move up, ideally before they have been messed with or caught by an another angler.
* Holding Tight: A shallow anchor is a valuable tool for bed fishing. Two are even better. Power Poles or Minn Kota Talons mount near the boat’s transom and automatically deploy with the press of a button. * Baits for Beds: Small, compact baits like creatures, craws, tubes and lizards are deadly on bedding fish. Color and rigging can make a big difference, too. Baits that are white or bubblegum in color stand out much better beneath the surface than translucent colors. This makes it easier to tell where the bait is at in relation to the bed, and see how the fish reacts to it.
Texas rigging with a pegged slip sinker is standard artillery for bed fishing. Another good choice is a short “drop shot” rig with a small cylinder weight staged 4-6 inches beneath the hook. The anatomy of the drop shot rig allows for keeping the bait in the bed without any forward movement. Shaking the rod tip to make the stationary bait flutter really aggravates the fish.
* Good Places to Look: Good places to look for beds are protected pockets with sandy or gravel shorelines laced with grass, lay downs or stumps for cover. Key on secondary points and flats a creek, ditch or some travel route that connects deep water to shallow.
Matt Williams is a freelance writer based in Nacogdoches. He can be reached by e-mail, mattwillwrite4u@ yahoo.com..
