(Editor's note: "Catching Bass with Dustin Wilks" airs three times per week on Sportsman Channel – 9:30 a.m. ET Friday, 4:30 p.m. Sunday and 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. He provides BassFans with supplemental information about each episode in these weekly submissions.)
The shad spawn is a yearly phenomenon that happens usually about the time the majority of the bass are finished spawning. The shad will hit the banks, floating docks or anything they can find that their eggs will stick to. It is best when the water is 68-72 degrees and a full moon. Most bass spawn in the 62- to 68-degree water and will be very hungry, and the shad spawn is the perfect time for them to fatten up.
This week’s show is centered on the shad spawn in late April. I was on a huge body of water and I happened to stop in an area where the spawn was full in full force. My first inclination was to fish points.
In the area I stopped, it just wasn’t happening on the points, but the first pocket I went into it was game on, with shad on the banks and flooded bushes. So I ran with it, fishing a Culprit 3/8-ounce white spinnerbait. It seemed every fish that saw it, ate it. They were biting in bushes and on floating docks and I was having a lot of fun, so looking for bigger fish was on the back burner. Most of the fish I was catching were just 2-pounders.
Like most BassFans, I prefer bigger fish and will often leave an area where I’m catching little ones, violating the old saying, “don’t leave fish to find fish."
On really big lakes, I’ve found often that just simply riding up or down the lake by 5 or 10 miles will do the trick and get you in a different habitat and a different grade of fish. Sometimes it is just a depth thing or a structure positioning thing; heck sometimes it is just time of the day. Consistently catching bigger fish is a game of change.
I ended up catching a 4-pounder and a 5 switching gears later in the day back to my original inclination to fish points.
During the shad spawn, it can be tough after the early morning … if you remember, I wrote this a few weeks back: "Think about a current pattern … the shad spawn which is happening now across much of the county. The early morning fishing routine is to cover as much water as you can on banks with shad and fish fast baits like spinnerbaits, squarebills and quick-moving topwaters and swimbaits. This often lasts till 9 or 10 a.m. if you are really lucky, then it stops. You can fish five more hours with the same lures and speed and literally catch nothing after catching a ton of fish early.”
So how do you catch them when the shad spawn is over?
You have an endless array of options to try and figuring it out is what makes it both fun and frustrating.
One of the most consistent things to look for is late spawners and fry-guarders.
If you noticed during the show, I started throwing a Yo-Zuri 3DB Popper in pockets in the late morning. This was about 9:30 a.m., toward the tail end of the shad spawn. Often during this time I'll slow down a bit and tease them into biting with that walk-the-dog action of a popper. Many times this popper deal can be a great pattern the rest of the day, especially if it's cloudy.
Even though there is a shad spawn, there are almost certainly bass still finishing up spawning and guarding fry. The popper is great for that. It can be hard to stick with it, though, after a feeding frenzy where they were just crushing spinnerbaits. You might go an hour or more between bites once it is done.
The Yo-Zuri Popper I use is 3’ inches long and walks like a champ with 15-pound Yo-Zuri Hybrid tied on a loop knot. I like the Falcon 7-foot Expert medium-heavy all-around rod for the popper and a fast reel. I cast to targets and walk in a really small area, then reel it in to the next target.
If you are like me, you don’t fish the same lake multiple days in a row, so decision-making based on current conditions and making the most of what you have is the best way to have fun.
When I fished big tournaments, it was different with 3 days to practice. In one such event, on Bull Shoals in Arkansas a few years back, I was in an Elite Series event and it was in the heart of a shad spawn.
My pattern was a big spinnerbait and crankbait parallel to steep rocky banks for the first couple of hours, easily securing enough weight for a check in those early hours. Then it would just stop.
I’d switch gears and begin pitching a 3/4-ounce Eco-Pro Kira jig into standing timber nearby. The combination of the small size and heavy weight of the tungsten got down into those deep trees in a hurry, getting reaction bites from the mid-day fish. I’d end up culling out a few fish each day doing that. It was really fun pulling them out of the trees with some vicious bites.
Don’t be scared of heavy jigs. They get a lot of bites and generate reactions from inactive fish. If a slow bait went through there they would have time to move out of the way. With a heavy one they don’t have time and they will eat it out of reaction. Most were suspended down about 7 feet on trees that were in 20 feet of water.
That tournament was won by Brandon Palaniuk on a deep-diving crankbait on a road bed in April, and that really took everyone in the field by surprise. Is that the norm? Certainly not. Hats off to Brandon for discovering that pattern.
My point is, you can consider literally everything and there is no one thing that is the best after the shad finish spawning in the morning.
