Pre Spawn-John Crews

Two-Tour Pro, John Crews defines pre spawn as the period of warming that occurs in a lake or river system during the late Winter or early Spring.  "Bass begin to transition from their deep water homes and begin to move up creek arms to position themselves near spawning flats."  Crews goes on to explain that these fish become very structure oriented, and seek contour and cover that will allow them a route between deep and shallow water.  "Long, rocky points are excellent places to start looking for pre spawners.  Typically, bass will be on long points or just inside the points as they follow contour lines like your or I follow a highway,  It makes the fish quite predictable."

According to Crews, the most important factor is water temperature and while he believes that water temperature is relative to the spices of bass, (smallmouth, spotted or largemouth,) and to the particular lake you are fishing, "warming water is what triggers this movement."

While pre spawners are definitely eating, their behavior seems to be different from those bass that are feeding in the main lake, (Winter bass patterns.) While Winter bass feed to survive, pre spawn bass seem to increase their feeding and may change from say shad to crawdads as they sense the need to be fully energized for the upcoming stress of the spawn.

Crews chooses a crank bait for pre spawn fishing.  "I like the Lure Jenson Speed Trap.  It allows me to cover a lot of water and I can target the eight to ten foot depths which is typically where I would expect to find bass that were in pre spawn.  The crank bait was big on the tour last year, we fished several pre spawn tournaments and crank baits seemed to be the lure of choice in those events."