John's Journal...

Good Tactics for Bad Spotted Bass

Taking Deep Spotted Bass

Click to enlargeEditor’s Note: The spot likes clear water and deep, rocky structure and loves to fight. He is delicious to eat but tough to catch because he is the baddest bass in the bassing business. A method that produces many spotted bass during the spring and summer months is night spinner bait angling.

Click to enlargeRicky Green of Arkansas is one of the nation’s leading spinner bait anglers. “The trick to catching spots with a spinner bait at night is to let the lure free-fall right down a rocky ledge. As the lure falls, you must be able to feel the blades turning without pulling the spinner bait back toward the boat. Most of the time the spot will attack when the lure is falling rather than when you’re retrieving.” When the weather is so hot anglers want to give up fishing, spinner baiting for spots at night can be exciting and productive. Sometimes when the sun goes down, the good-sized spots come out. At some of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) lakes in Tennessee, spotted bass have been taken as deep as 100 feet.

Click to enlargeDr. John Ramsay, now retired from the Alabama Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Unit at Auburn University, suggests that, “You tend to catch bigger spotted bass on deeper structure than you do on more-shallow structure. If the fish have a choice in water depth with equally good structure available, the larger spots tend to choose the deeper structure while the smaller spots may utilize the less deep structure.” Dr. Ramsay mentions oClick to enlargene more characteristic of the spot that he prefers to the largemouth. “The spot is a better-eating fish than the largemouth bass and doesn’t taste near as fishy as the largemouth. Perhaps because the spotted bass eats more crustaceans than the largemouth do is why the flavor of the meat is somewhat different.” Dr. Ramsay also confesses that when he is fishing he prefers catching a spotted bass rather than a largemouth, although the maximum size of spots is usually 4 to 5 pounds. “Spots are more challenging to try and catch. They put up more of a fight, and they are better to eat. I like fishing for spotted bass more than for largemouth.”




 




Check back each day this week for more about " Good Tactics for Bad Spotted Bass"

Day 1: The Creation of the Bad Spotted Bass
Day 2: Spotting the Spotted Bass
Day 3: Locating Spotted Bass
Day 4: Catching Spotted Bass
Day 5: Taking Deep Spotted Bass

 

Entry 360, Day 5