May: something for everybody

It’s May. Let’s go fishing. Anybody have any questions?

May is my favorite time to fish for bass. February and March are probably the best months to catch a big bass, but I enjoy fishing more in May, and I’ve probably won more money in May over the course of my career than any other month.

The reason? There are so many opportunities, so many different patterns that can work. You have the opportunity to fish for bass in all stages of the spawn; there are still some prespawn fish early in the month, and there are spawning fish, and you’ve got a lot of postspawn crankbait fish. Plus, the weather is so much more stable; you’re less likely to have a bad-weather day, and you can expect to fish a lot of T-shirt days.

The other thing is, I get to fish the way I like to, because I can usually choose. In tournaments, you don’t always get to fish to your strengths; you have to fish the way that will give you the best chance of getting a chance. In May, I can fish the way I like and expect to do pretty well.

If you haven’t gotten a chance to fish this spring, this is the time to get out. Turkey season is over; you can enjoy yourself in ponds, rivers, lakes and streams all over the state.

What’s this spring going to be like? We’ve had a long, cold winter, so there will definitely still be some spawning fish through May. When I go to lakes around the country, I look at things to give me an idea what the fish might be doing, things you might not expect. I look at the trees, the grass, whether or not thing are blooming or greening up. I’ll do that at home this spring and try to decide what stage the fish are in, and I’ll factor in what the lake I’m fishing is like: if it’s a lake that’s got a tradition of being a great crankbait lake — a place like Wateree or Wylie — I’ll probably target the postspawn fish that are setting up in deeper water. If I’m not sure, I’ll tie on a Senko, because that’s a great all-around bait that will catch fish in all stages of the spawn. If it’s a lake with blueback herring like Hartwell or Russell or Clarks Hill, I’ll think about topwater baits.

With so much water in our lakes this past winter, the water will probably be higher than normal, and fish will tend to stay shallower. You can look at bushes and shallow, visible cover.

If you want to target spawning or prespawn fish, you should head to the upper end of a lake because the water is a little cooler and the fish spawn later. The other places I’d go are pockets that are close to deeper water where the bass live all year.

Probably the two patterns I like to fish the best in May are postspawn bass on crankbaits and topwater baits around the herring spawn.

If I’m going to target postspawn fish, I’m going to look for bass on the first drop outside your spawning flats, secondary points that outside of pockets and coves — the first places that fish will stage moving back out.

You’ll certainly be able to fish that pattern in the latter part of May, and when you catch fish on a crankbait, stop and really fish that place, because fish will usually be grouped up after they come off the beds and recover. It’s like they all get together out there and whine about how hard the spawn is. They search out those little points and dropoffs where the bait is going to pass by.

I typically like to fish rods with fast-actions, but when I’m fishing a crankbait, I’ll fish a 7-foot All-Star composite cranking rod with a very soft action. That allows you to really load up and get great casting distance, and you can land a bass better on that kind of rod when he’s hooked on a crankbait. And remember, crankbaits should be some kind of shad pattern in May, because that’s what they’re going to be feeding on when they set up on those postspawn kinds of places.

The blueback herring spawn will really dominate the fishing on those lakes with bluebacks, and it will mean some great topwater baits. I won a BASS Elite Series tournament on Clark Hill a couple of years ago in May; I know I won it on a Mop Jig, but you usually catch a lot of fish in May there on your big topwater baits like Spooks, Super Spooks, Pencil Poppers — what I like to call “power” topwater baits.

Unlike shad, blueback herring are going to relate to points when they spawn. I just run points until I can figure out the exact kind of point they’re all going to be using. They do tend to change from year to year. When I find a place, I like to stay a cast to two casts off the bank.