Be a dock doctor – Find the right boat docks this month and you’ll find some great bass underneath

April is a great month to target boat docks for largemouth bass in North Carolina.

When pro bass fisherman Andy Montgomery approaches a boat dock with a fishing rod in hand, he’s like a painter looking at a brand-new canvas or a sculptor looking at a big hunk of clay.

“I don’t know about all that,” grinned Montgomery, who is from Blacksburg, S.C., or Grover, N.C. — depending on which end of his house he’s in, “but I do like to fish boat docks, especially this time of year when bass will be coming in to bed around them.”

Montgomery qualified last fall for his second Bassmaster Classic by fishing jigs under boat docks and winning a qualifying tournament on Lake Norman. To him, catching bass that are hanging around pier pilings or hiding under pads of flotation is second nature. He said that a boat dock, if located in the right spot and in water that’s not gin clear, provides everything a spawning bass could ask for.

“I’m going to concentrate on the docks that are already located in good spawning areas,” he said. “I concentrate in the backs of coves and little shallow pockets, and I’m going to fish the docks toward the back third of those pockets.  Once I get to those docks, then I’m going to focus almost entirely on poles — the poles that hold up or support the dock. Typically, that’s where a lot of the fish will be spawning.”

Montgomery doesn’t have to pick and choose his days for fishing docks like he may have to for fishing, say a wind-blown point or an open water hump. He said docks are good nearly every day, year-round, but especially in April.

“Typically, sunny conditions are better for dock fishing,  but April is a month that’s essentially the exception to that because the fish are spawning around the docks,” he said. “Really, the conditions — whether it be cloudy, rainy, sunny, windy, whatever —the fish are on the bed, and they’re going to stay there.  April is one month where weather condition really don’t matter.”

Montgomery normally fishes jigs around docks, but in April, he’ll fish a Texas-rigged soft-plastic bait of some kind. He uses a 5/16-ounce worm weight but does not peg it in place. That gives him the payload he needs to get a back bait well under the dock, and the soft-plastic is a little more buoyant than a heavy jig.

“Plastics are a big deal that time of year,” he said. “My favorites would be a Strike King Rage Bug or a Rage Lizard. A lizard is one of the best baits this time of year. Just keep in mind that you’re fishing for spawning bass. It’s the same as if you see him.  You’re pitching plastics at them, and you have to work it to get a bite. You’re going to use the same stuff, you’re going to use natural colors: green pumpkin, anything but white.  Plastics are, by far, the No. 1 bait.”

Sight-fishing is the last thing Montgomery wants to do around a boat dock. He will eliminated creeks with extremely clear water and fish areas with stained water so he can’t see the fish, and, more important, they can’t see him.

“I’m fishing dirty water,” he said. “Pitch back in there two or three times, you’re going to get a bite. When he bites it, you set the hook. That’s typical dirty water fishing. It’s going to be a pretty good bite; it’s not going to be no light bite. It’s nothing like sight-fishing. You just pitch in there and you catch it.”

His last bit of advice was a reminder that bass beds in pairs, where you catch one, there’s likely to be another.

“A lot of times, the male may bite first,” he said. “When you catch a fish off of a pole, and you only catch one, you need to remember exactly what pole it is. Come back to it an hour later.  If you’ve already caught the buck, you may can pitch in there and catch the female.”