It seems like I talk about the same thing each March.
I’d love to focus on something else — maybe how to rig your new boat or how to get your tackle ready for the season — but I just can’t. That’s because bass fishing in North Carolina is just too good in March. It’s absolutely the best month of the year if you’re looking to catch the biggest bass of your life.
I’ve talked to a lot of people about this topic, and I haven’t really gotten a good answer, but we all agree. The biggest female fish in any reservoir seem to be the first ones to move out of deep water. They’re first bass to really start feeding, and the first ones to spawn.
I don’t know if there’s a particular reason — I’ve heard a lot of different things. I just know that’s the way it is.
What you’re dealing with in March is fish that have been cold all winter, fish that haven’t been feeding very much, and fish that haven’t seen many lures. They’ll go on a feeding spree, especially when the water temperature gets to around 50 degrees or better.
They’ve been dormant; they’re hungry. It’s kind of like you and me. If you miss lunch and dinner one day, you’re going to make up for it the next day.
If it’s been cold and it starts to warm up, they’ll almost be easy to fool. During the fall when people have been beating on them all year, they wouldn’t even look at a crankbait or a jig. But during Marsh they’re eating everything that comes past their noses.
They haven’t seen any lures in months — haven’t had any fishing pressure applied to them — and they’re easy to fool with a lure.
So with all these hungry, aggressive bass out there, how do you catch one? Finding them is the first and most important task.
Where you start to fish can be different at different lakes, based on the makeup of the lake. At Lake Wylie, I start fishing the mouths of creeks, but at High Rock, I fish the back of the creeks and the main lake. At Buggs Island, I fish the main lake and up in the creeks a little ways.
But the thing you can count on is at most N.C. lakes, bass will be oriented near something associated with rock or deep water. To really have success, you sometimes have to find those two things together.
Bluff walls — rip-rapped banks or really short steep points — are great, especially if they’re rocky.
You’re looking for places where deep water is close to shallow water, where fish can move a short distance horizontally and a good distance vertically. And remember to look on the north sides of lakes first because those banks get the most sunlight and warm up the earliest.
One thing I try to avoid is fishing anywhere near a hot-hole — a warm-water discharge from a power plant that some lakes have. I want to fish away from those places, especially when the water temperature has gotten to 50 because they’ll have been fished all winter, and bass at those areas have been pressured.
I usually start with five lures, and all have one thing in common — they can be fished slowly.
I’ll use a Rapala DT-10 in crawdad color — if they’re that deep — or a Shad Rap in crawfish (either a No. 7 or a No. 5), a Husky Jerk in gold and a Deep Diving Husky Jerk, also in gold. I really like that gold color in the early spring. The last lure will be, of course, a jig.
A Shad Rap is probably one of the better baits you can fish. You can wind it back slowly the way you fish a crankbait, or you can sweep it back the way you fish a Deep Diving Husky Jerk — moving the bait by sweeping the rod tip, then reeling in your slack.
Stickbaits also are effective on big fish early in the season because they’re big baits — and you can fish them slowly. That’s the key.
Fish are aggressive, but they’re still not chasing the way they will later in the year. Their metabolism isn’t going full bore. A big lure you can fish slowly, that a bass can eat with little effort, is perfect.
When I’m fishing a Husky Jerk, I’ll wind the bait down to 3 of 4 feet and fish it with a jerk-jerk-pause retrieve. The key is figuring out how long to make the pause.
When I’m using a Deep Diving Husky Jerk or any other spoonbill bait, I’ll wind it down and sweep the rod, then take up the slack, sweep the rod, then take up the slack.
You’re fishing it 8- to 10-feet deep. If you want to fish it shallower, you point the rod tip at the bait and sweep the rod up, then reel in the slack. If you want it to stay deep, you sweep the rod to the side. You also can do that with a Shad Rap.
One thing to remember is, a lot of people like to fish fluorocarbon line in clear water. If you’re fishing a jerkbait or a Shad Rap with a sweeping motion, that’s fine.
But if you’re jerking and winding, jerking and winding, fluorocarbon line won’t hold up. It’s great for finesse fishing, but it won’t hold up to a lot of jerking. It’ll be good for about a half-day, then you’ll have to change it.
I fish a DT-10 or a No. 7 Shad Rap on 10-pound Rapala line. If I’m fishing a No. 5 Shad Rap, I usually drop to 8-pound test because that’s such a little bait, it makes it easier to cast.
I’ll use at least 12-pound test line, if not 14-pound, with jerkbaits. Those baits seem to work better with heavier line. You could use 17- or 20-pound fluorocarbon — that line would hold up — but I usually don’t like to throw anything with line that heavy.
And if I’m not just cranking, if I’m jerking or sweeping a bait, I’ll use an American RodSmiths 6-foot, 10-inch graphite rod. Most of your bites are coming on slack line — on the pause after the jerks or after you’ve swept the bait and stopped — so you need the graphite to get a good hookset.
One of the neat things about early March, when those bigger females are moving up, is it’s really one of the best times of the year to pattern fish. If you can catch one or two fish, you can usually take a little time to think and figure out what the places you caught them on have in common.
Were they rocky, secondary points? Were they at rip-rap at the mouth of a creek? Where they 10- or 6-feet deep? You can usually take that information and start running the same kinds of places all over the lake and catch fish. Bass pattern that well this time of year.
Another good point is that you can catch a limit at one spot — if you find the right spot. You may find places where you can catch two or three quality fish or one spot, maybe a little point or a rocky bank. You might pull up and catch one fish off the one stump at that area if that’s all the cover there is. But, you can catch numbers.
If you’re at a lake such as Shearon Harris that has grass, you might find one of those little stretches where you’ve got a bank that runs out a little ways and falls off — a little short bank. Those are the kinds of places where you might catch 50 fish.
But the thing is, you’ll catch bass if you find them. They’re really feeding, and they’re big fish.
March could be one of the best months of your fishing life — if you put everything together.
David Fritts is a 50-year-old professional bass fisherman from Lexington. He won the 1993 Bassmasters Classic, was the 1994 Bass Angler of the Year and won the FLW Tour Championship in 1997. He is sponsored by Ranger boats, Evinrude outboards, MinnKota, Zoom, Rapala, Bass Pro Shops, American RodSmiths, Solar Bat and Chevrolet.
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