This weather…just what I asked for

This may sound completely crazy to most of you but I literally prayed for this onslaught of cold weather. During the second week of March I watched a lake go from 50 to 55 degrees by the end of the day. The water temps were increasing too much and too fast. The spawn would be ON and DONE in just a week or two at this rate. During the drought periods we saw many a bass spawn come and go too darn quickly.

The recent blizzard only managed to drop lake temperartures a few measly degrees but it did in fact reverse the warming trend. That is a great start. Then the lower temps at night added their affect. This morning I drove by mud puddles that were completely frozen over.

“That is more like it...at least for March” I said under my breath.

Bassers can now breath a small sigh of relief. The spawn is getting back on track and falling into a more seasonal pattern here in Colorado. That means that the actual spawn will happen closer to May and last a lot longer. This goes for the pre-spawn as well. For me, the prespawn is the Super Bowl of bass fishing. Smallmouth and largemouth will be at their peak weight.

During the pre-spawn, the fish will deal with a bit of angling pressure. More so than harassing the fish during the prime time nesting period. It’s my opinion that this hurts a fishery. There are a lot of factors in play with a creature’s reproduction and rather than give you the full poindexter 411 biological breakdown I simply implore folks to release the bass and minimize their impact as much as possible during the nesting periods. Catch and Release/selective harvest (minimal harvest) is the key to better fishing in Colorado…so let’s see more of that!

Rarely does the weather work in my favor. Most of the time it seems to be completely against me. Maybe the weather was just testing me and this cold spurt was the reward for all that previous torment. Regardless...I will be thankful. Things will warm up soon enough and by July we all will have a handful of glorious hawgy bass pictures that we can truly cherish for years to come.

Good Luck and Good Fishing!