By Bill Vanderford. It has been a very long, cold winter here at Lake Lanier with lots of icy precipitation as well as plenty of natural rain. This has kept the water temperatures much lower for a longer period, which has also made the normally hungry bass dormant. However, these first warm days of spring have started to change all of that and now we are catching bass during the early pre-spawn period. As the surface temperature of the water is creeping above 50 degrees, spotted bass success is happening with a lure that I primarily designed to catch striped bass.
When the warming water draws the bass away from their deeper winter homes towards the shorelines, they tend to hold and feed suspended away from the banks of the lake in 10 to 15 feet of water. Therefore, for an angler to be successful, it is necessary to have a lure pass through this magic depth at a very slow pace, but with enough action to attract the bass’ curiosity and appetite. I am accomplishing this by utilizing the Striper Series Swirleybirds in 1/4 and 3/8 ounce sizes. These lures have enough weight to easily take the lure to the desired depth with enough flash to attract any bass. They are available online at www.georgiafishing.com.
In the clearer waters, color never seems to make much of a difference, but when fishing stained or slightly muddy water, brighter chartreuse or green/orange/chartreuse Swirleybirds seem to be more productive. Nevertheless, the most important ingredient is always the speed of the retrieve!
Most anglers seem to think that the more casts they make the better their chances, but during Lanier’s early pre-spawn period, that is not the case. It is imperative that one finds the “happy medium” to be successful. The retrieve must be just fast enough to allow the lure to reach the magic 10 to 15 foot level, but not one bit more than that. Only the trial of success or failure will show a fisherman when he has achieved the proper speed.
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