Bass-Fishing Pros’ Tips for Catching Bass After the Spawn
Denny Brauer and the Post Spawn
 Editor’s Note: With the bass on the bed, most anglers can find and catch them because they can see them. However, after the spawn, the bass seem to vanish. This week, six of the nation’s top-bass-fishing pros to tell us where to find post-spawn bass and how to catch them. With the bass on the bed, most anglers can find and catch them because they can see them. However, after the spawn, the bass seem to vanish. We’ve asked several of the nation’s top-bass-fishing pros to tell us where to find post-spawn bass and how to catch t hem. Today Denny Brauer of Camdenton, Missouri, the host of “Strike King’s Pro Team Journal” on the Outdoor Channel, will tell us how he fishes the post-spawn. Brauer’s won the Angler-of-the-Year title and the Bassmaster Classic.
The biggest problem most people have catching bass during the post spawn is determining where the bass go when they leave the spawning areas. Once you know where the fish have gone, they’re not hard to catch. Look for pullback places because post-spawn bass won’t be on the spawning flats or in their deep-water summer haunts. But there’s a lot of water in-between those two regions. Immediately after the spawn, you can catch bass around the spawning region because the bass will be try to protect their fry. Top-water baits like the Spit-N-King will allow you to cover a lot of water.
Temperature, particularly the trend of the temperature, is the key to finding bass during the post spawn. If the water temperature’s trending warmer, a cold front comes through, sending the water temperature trending downward or the water temperature’s fairly stable, the bass will prefer differe nt sections of the lake.
The best condition for finding and catching post-spawn bass is with stable water temperature or water temperature that’s trending to normal. Once the female bass leave the spawning areas after they’ve protected their fry, they’ll often move to isolated cover. If a lake has hydrilla, oftentimes post-spawn females will pull out to the edges of the hydrilla and hold. You can catch these bass by casting a jig on the edges of those weed lines or using a Carolina rig with a lizard.
To catch the big post-spawn females, pinpoint the heaviest cover close to the spawning areas. If no cover’s available, I’ll search for the nearest bottom break to the spawning flats. Water clarity will tell you what color to fish. If I’m fishing heavy cover in stained water, I’ll fish the Strike King Pro Buzz buzzbait. When I find targets like sunken logs, stumps or bushes, I’ll fish a Strike King Denny Brauer’s Premier Pro-Model Jig. If the water’s slightly clear, I’ll be pitching the Strike King KVD Pro-Model Tube in a green-pumpkin color. But I’ll experiment with both the jig and the tube when I’m fishing thick cover.
If the bass have been heavily pressured or the weather condition has caused them to be finicky, the bass often will take the tube before they’ll take the jig, even in dirty water. If I’m flipping and pitching in heavy cover, and the water’s really muddy, I’ll use 60-pound-test braided line. In slightly-stained water, I’ll fish 25-pound-test Mustad Thor line. If the water’s super clear, I’ll use 20-pound-test fluorocarbon line. Most of the time I’ll use a No. 4/0 Mustad tube hook when I’m fishing the tube, unless I’m fishing a lake with a tremendous number of really-large bass. Then I’ll move up to the No. 5/0 hook.
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