Understanding the Bass Spawn

Bass spawn typically on shallow spawning beds, also called nesting sites, in the spring with the males staying on the bed up to a month protecting the eggs, fry and fingerlings.

Why is Understanding the Bass Spawn Important?

It is important to understand the bass spawn to:

Find Bass: When and where you can spawning bass plus the pre-spawn bass that are staging and bass during the post-spawn.
Select Lure: As the bass’ behavior is no longer driven by the consumption of forage it may need to select a lure that irritates the bass to bite, especially largemouth bass.

Understanding The Bass Spawn

Temperature:
- Largemouth: 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Smallmouth: 52 degrees Fahrenheit.
Process: Male create a spawning bed, which attracts a larger female who travels in groups around spawning beds. Some suggest the larger females spawn earlier than the smaller females. Female and male are together during laying of the eggs. The female will stay as long as two days then go to another bed to repeat the process. The male stays to protect the eggs and fry from predators and by fanning the eggs to provide additional oxygen and to keep off the silt. In 3 days the eggs hatch and 15 days later the fry are expanding beyond the bed while the male is still protecting them. The male stays with them until they are 1 inch fingerlings and start breaking into different groups.
Duration: 10 to 14 days
Feeding Activity:
- Largemouth: Don’t actively eat while protecting eggs and fry and their bite motivations is more of a defensive strike where they swat at what would normally be forage and only if the forage is persistent will they bite it.
- Smallmouth: Will eat opportunistically if forage comes on the spawning bed.
Bed Shape: The male bass creates depressions, often circular, by removing the silt with the tail and lower fins as the silt can smother eggs and young fry.
Bed Color: Often, the beds will have a lighter color from surrounding substrate. In some cases it can be darker, for example in some sandy environments.
Territoriality: Prior to the eggs, the male territory is wider than the bed and can be scared off the bed. After the eggs the male protects the eggs and fry not leaving the bed except to attack something that could harm the eggs and fry. When the fry expands beyond the bed the male territory increases.
Locations:
- Warmest Spots First: The spawn starts in the warmest parts of the lake first and coldest last.
- Protected Areas: Generally, but not always, bass will look for areas protected from wind.
- Hard Bottom: The eggs will be laid on gravel, shell beds,
  - Some Soft Bottom: Some soft bottom the bass can use their tails to fan off the silt to get to hard bottom.
- Near Cover: Most suggest that largemouth and sometimes smallmouth like to have cover next to the spawning bed.
  - Lilly pads in 4 plus feet that grow in hard bottom.
- Depth: Spawn locations on flat hard bottom for example sand and gravel in above 15 feet, historically most suggested around 3 to 5 feet but with the use of forward facing sonar, it has be discovered that the spawn is much more common deeper. This can vary based on water clarity. Spawn locations are where lakes have protected areas from heavy wind such as large coves as these areas may be the best spawning locations as the bass want their eggs to stay in the bed. Locations are not only protected but get a lot of sun.
- Sunlight & Depths: Eggs need sunlight so on murky lakes need to be shallower – under 10 ft then clear lakes up to 15 ft. Some suggest the north end of lakes as they warm first.
Returning Females: Some suggest that females will return to beds looking for males at the end of the spawn period when males are attending to fingerlings or have gone to post-spawn feeding. In the southern USA, where the spawning season is longer, it is believed that females will spawn twice each on multiple beds.
- Early Spawn vs Late: Some suggest that the females will look for the larger males in the beginning of the spawn and any male near the end of the spawn.
Percentage of Bass that Spawn: Not all bass spawn. Some suggest that some males spawn every other year due to the stress of not eating for a month with high mating and defensive activity.

Additional Considerations

Sight Fishing: Sight fishing including the use of a flogger is the common approach when targeting spawning bass.
Pre-Spawn, Post Spawn: Bass tend to stage near their spawning area during the pre-spawn and actively feed near their spawning areas post spawn.
Regulations – Fishing Seasons: Regulated fishing seasons until after the spawn are less common in the USA but in some states there is a limited fishing season on specific bodies of water or state wide for example is New York State. Canada has fishing restrictions. In some cases it is a total restriction while other regulations mandates catch and release.
Flogger: Deeper spawning bass that are not visible some pro anglers use a flogger, a cone shaped device, to identify and help with the presentation.