With Spring Time Bass Fishing-Seeing is believing

When Kelly Jordon launched his boat for the first day of practice at South Carolina's Santee-Cooper Reservoir he began fishing a shallow water worming technique to help him determine the mood of the bass for the upcoming B A S S tour stop. After about 4 hours of fishing, Jordon was impressed, ..not by what he was catching, but by what he was seeing.

"The fishing wasn't even that great during practice, but what impressed me was the number of giant bass that were cruising just outside the edges of spawning flats,"  noted Jordon.

The BASS tour had arrived at Santee-Cooper ahead of its first major spawn of the year, and during the pre tournament practice period, it seemed that the pros might be in for a tough bite. But this is Spring time and with the water temperatures warming, Jordon knew that it would only be a matter of time before the big ones began moving into the shallows.

"It was not a question of if they would move up, it was a matter of when they would move up," commented Jordon who decided that he would not fish any more the last two days of practice and instead would only cruise around the two lakes that make up Santee-Cooper, looking for likely spawning areas.

Most bass pros try to find fish during the pre tournament practice periods. Jordon, looking ahead, decided to look for areas that he thought the bass would migrate to. What he saw, what he found were several small size pockets along the shore of both lakes that had empty nests and big bass cruising along the outside of the pockets. When the tournament started, Jordon decided that he would keep himself in the game by catching the smaller male bass that were already up guarding nests, biding his time until the major migration that he was anticipating took place.

This strategy paid off for Jordon as he was in 11th place after the first day with a weight of 17 pounds 12 ounces. He slipped a bit the second day but held on to make the cut as the last angler in the top 12. Towards the end of the 2nd day, Jordon began to see big fish in the shallows. He knew that by the next day, those fish would be catch able. When day three began, the final twelve anglers moved off in all directions, Jordon moved to the shallows and began fishing. His first fish of the day was an 8-13 beauty, and everything else seemed to fall into place. By the end of that third day, Jordon weighed in 28 pounds and pulled into 2nd place.

"Everywhere I looked, big fish were moving into the shallows," said an elated Jordon.

The migration of big fish had began. The last day was the icing on the cake. Jordon caught an incredible 32 pounds 4 ounces and took the $100,000 dollar first prize. What was particularly interesting about the last two days of fishing was that Jordon caught his fish in a very small pocket.

"It was about the size of your back yard."

 In the last two days of the B A S S tournament at Santee-Cooper, Kelly Jordon caught over 60 pounds of bass from an area no bigger than a modest sized back yard. He never caught a bass there the entire practice period. What drew him to this magic spot? An understanding of Spring time bass behavior and the fish that he saw swimming around the area during practice. Proof again that during the Spring time,..Seeing is believing.