Guys who are deer hunters will understand why March is such an important month for bass fishermen.
If you want to kill the biggest buck you possibly can, you need to make sure you’re in the woods a lot during the peak of the rut.
And if you want to catch the biggest bass of your life, you need to make sure you’re on the water this month. March is, in my opinion, THE month to catch big bass in the Carolinas. If you want to catch a big bass, this is the time to be on the water.
Through many years of fishing tournaments on Lake Murray and across South Carolina, March has been the month that has most consistently produced the largest number of big fish. I can remember one tournament on Murray when I caught a 10.38-pound fish — and I finished third for big fish. Ninety-nine percent of the time, a 10-pound fish will win big fish — but not in March.
I don’t know of anyone who really knows the reason, but the biggest female bass tend to move up the earliest. Those are the fish that you’ll find spawning by the end of March. The first of the month, they’ll move into their staging places.
Female bass make two big moves during the early spring. They move out of the deep water where they’ve spent the winter, then they move to the places where they’re going to spawn, to the flats and pockets where the water warms up the earliest once the moon gets right.
The first place, the places they stage, are points or creek-channel bends where deep water is closest to shallow water, particularly, spawning coves and pockets. You want water that moves up abruptly, places where you can position your boat in 20 feet of water and cast almost to the bank. If you look at a topo map, it’s where the contour lines are really close together.
Those big females will pull up and down, in and out, of their staging areas, as the cold fronts and warm fronts alternate. I’m going to fish them mostly with a crankbait, because they’re going to be very aggressive, coming out of the deep water for the first time and feeding heavily.
When they get there, they stay a while. They hold, hold, hold and hold some more on staging areas, and when they move, they really move, to the places where they’ll eventually spawn.
It seems like fish will hold forever on the places where they stage, and when they move again, they might go a half-mile to the place they’re going to actually spawn. They may travel a long way to a flat that has the good cover they’re looking for.
What they’re looking for is the best cover, the best protection, they can find. They know that when they’re spawning, they’re going to be in the most precarious position they’ll be in all year, and they don’t want to do it in a wide-open, exposed place.
The best cover available might be milfoil or hydrilla. If you’re fishing a lake that doesn’t have any vegetation, bass might have to move a ways to the willow bushes and buck bushes in the back of a cove.
Where they go and set up depends on what’s available. They adapt very well to what they have — and that can change from year to year and lake to lake. Lake Murray and Santee Cooper are prime examples. Just a few years ago, there were thousands and thousands of acres of vegetation there. Now, that’s all gone, but they’ll find other kinds of cover for the spawn.
This year presents a very unusual situation, because of the low-water conditions caused by last year’s extended drought. On a lot of lakes, the water level fell so much it’s not likely to return to anywhere near full pool this spring. That is going to put send bass spawning in places they’ve never spawned before. The amount of cover is going to be very limited on most lakes — the shoreline bushes, stumps and brushpiles are out. There are probably a lot of docks that have brushpiles off the end, maybe 10 to 12 to 14 feet deep. This spring, that kind of cover will be maybe one to four feet deep — and that will be where a lot of fish spawn.
That leaves the bass in a tough situation. They’ll probably be more exposed than they’ve ever been in their lifetimes. It will be great for catching fish, and you should take every opportunity to do so, but remember, they’re really exposed, so don’t do anything to hurt the system. Take care of the big bass you catch; get that photo-of-a-lifetime and get her back in the water.
One trick I use when I’m trying to catch that super big female bass is to upsize my baits. Big baits will catch big fish. I know a 4-inch worm will catch a 12-pound bass, and I’m not saying you can’t catch a big fish on a small bait. But in March, in South Carolina, I’m going to a big bait, because a big bass is sort of like me. If I can get a good meal without having to run five miles, I’m going to do it. If I can eat a 20-ounce steak without leaving my house, I’m not going to go down the road for a chance to eat a 6-ounce steak.
Bass will do what is easy, so that they can remain big and fat and lazy. If they can eat one big meal instead of several little ones, they will.
Let me clarify a little. By big baits, I mean a bait that’s bigger than the ones I’ll throw from June through November. I’m going to fish a 1-ounce spinnerbait instead of a half-ounce, a ¾-ounce jig with a big trailer instead of a smaller one. If I usually fish a 5-inch Senko, I’m going to go with a 7-inch Senko. If I’m fishing a crankbait, I’m going from a small one to a big one that will run the same depth.
I’m not looking for those 2- and 3-pound fish that I try to catch in a tournament; I’m looking for a real wallhanger, a real trophy fish.
One thing about March bears mentioning. It’s not an easy month to sight-fish for spawning bass, because the water is usually stained. Sure, some fishermen will find enough clear water to cast to fish they see, but most of the time, you’re looking at a piece of shallow cover and trying to visualize where a bass would hold on that piece of cover to spawn.
I think the stained water has to do with the majority of big females going in first. I think they’ve successfully spawned early for a lot of years, and they know they’re not as exposed in stained water — not nearly the way they are later in the spring when the runoff ends and the water clears up.
So take advantage of the opportunity that’s right in front of you. Go to the lake, look for the two kinds of places they’re going to spend the month, tie on a big mouthful of a bait, and target that huge bass that’s been giving you nightmares for years. You can turn them into great dreams.
Davy Hite is a 42-year-old native of Saluda who lives in Ninety Six, S.C. He has fished professionally since 1993. He was the BASS Angler of the Year in 1997 and 2002, and he was won the 1999 Bassmasters Classic and the 1998 FLW Tour Championship. He is sponsored by Triton boats, Evinrude outboards, All-Star rods, Pfleuger reels, Berkley Trilene, Owner hooks, Gary Yamamoto’s Senko baits and Solar Bat sunglasses.
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