Spotted bass are generally viewed as "filler" fish, meaning you catch them to fill out your limit, but only if you have to. Obviously that's because they're generally smaller than largemouths -- or at least the spots most people catch.
Aaron Martens has built a good career in part because of his spotted bass expertise. Everyone on tour knows that if big spotted bass are in a lake, Martens will find them (while most other pros won't). In the following, he shares a few of his secrets for finding and catching bigger spots.
Lake Area
"The bigger spots are grouped up," he says. "It's a matter of finding the right fish -- you just have to find where the big ones are. They'll always be on a certain place in the lake."
He looks for them in "bigger areas of the lake -- bigger and wider. Areas that have some good feeding areas plus deep water really close by, like a channel bend or something." Sometimes these areas have "lots of bait. Bigger spots like it easy."
The first thing he does when trying to pinpoint big-spot spots is map study. "I spend a lot of time looking at the map," he says. "I study it really hard, every inch of it. I mark spots, then get in an area with the map and hit my GPS if a place looks good."
Once he picks out some likely-looking areas, he combs the bottom with his electronics. "Electronics are really important. You have to have them, especially for spotted bass." He graphs very slowly, at idle or in neutral. "The deeper it is, the slower I go. I really study the bottom for rock content, trees, all that good stuff." He's not sponsored by an electronics company, but uses Lowrance.
Depth
Most people assume Martens is fishing something like 100 feet deep to catch the big ones. Sometimes that's true (maybe not 100 feet), but not all the time.
"Certain times of the year you will find bigger spots deeper, and the majority of the of time they are a little deeper. But some spots out (east) get super- shallow, like Coosa River spots. They'll get in 3-4 feet of water and stay there for a while.
"It varies depending on what kind of water you're fishing, but generally the bigger spots are a little deeper and more offshore."
Smaller Schools
He notes that finding bigger spot spots is a process of trial and error. "I have some spots at Wheeler, and Shasta and Oroville I have wired," he says. "I'm finding them slowly but surely. It takes time, but the good thing is that once you find them, they don't seem to change too much. They stay good -- the fish get comfortable there -- unless they get hammered by boats. Then it can change pretty quick."
Martens also notes that schools of bigger spots are smaller than schools of smaller spots, and that you know you're on the bigger fish when you "find 2- pound fish. You'll usually find bigger ones in there with them. But if you're on 1 1/4- or 1 1/2-pound fish, that's all you will catch."
How to Catch Them
Of course one of Martens' favorite techniques for busting big spots is the dropshot rig. But that's not all he uses. Hair jigs, Texas-rigging and even topwaters are in his arsenal.
"In springtime I do lot of Texas-rigging," he says. "Usually that's in the pre- spawn, within a month or so of the spawn." He opts for the Texas rig because "fish are keying on crawdads more than minnows or shad, and they go after (crawfish-type baits) much more aggressively." He likes a small football- headed jighead and sometimes even fishes a jig and pig. "Just something with more bottom contact.
"Once they get off that, then I go to the dropshot. Post-spawn, a dropshot is deadly." This is also when he might use a hair jig. "Usually they hit it halfway down," he says. If not, he bumps rocks on the way back to the boat.
In fall the dropshot still works, but he notes that topwaters -- big topwaters - - "can be awesome." He uses a Megabass Giant Dog-X and a Super Spook (clear/chartreuse "seems to be a little better") over the same places he'd be dropshotting. "You can fish it over 80 feet of water. A lot of times big spots will be suspending and chasing bait around. They won't really be relating to the bottom."
Notable
> When fishing soft-plastics and jigs, he sticks with natural colors -- mostly blacks, browns, cinnamon-browns (sculpin) and greens -- and his namesake Roboworm color, Aaron's Magic. That has some purple in it, which he likes for slightly dirtier water. When dropshotting, he uses shad colors and greens with dyed chartreuse tips.
> "If you find big fish and they don't bite very well, sometimes I go to a super-light weight -- 1/8- or 1/32-ounce," he said. "That gives it a slow fall. Throw it out, let the bait sink to the bottom, then lift the slack out. Don't shake it. It's almost like fishing a Senko."
> "I think spots are more like stripers than bass, and you can treat them more like a striper, especially in the summertime."
> "It's not a matter of catching them. It's more a matter of finding them."
