May and June (Look Out)

May and June on Guntersville

As we move into the month of May and June no presentation catches more fish than crank baits. This is absolutely the best presentation for fish, big fish and numbers of fish that you can choose. The bass migrate back out of the spawning coves, you can straight-line your map, find the drops, curves, grass lines or creeks and the bass will stack up into these areas like clockwork year after year. Creek edges, points, drops inside bends and outside bends all become targets. The bottom is your friend, your electronics is your search engine and mapping present your keys to finding schools of fish.

When this occurs, you have many options of crank baits to choose from. First is the square bill crank bait that bumps and snaps off shallow shell beds or wood and snaps out of grass like being ripped from the bottom. This bait causes reactions and competition among bass; you can catch them in bunches as they stack up near the creeks or pick up fish roaming looking for meals along grass lines.

As you move deeper, I go to the deep diver series like deep diving crank baits, they wobble and make noise and have extremely sharp hooks on them, and they catch fish. The ability to get a crank bait to the bottom where you can bump the rock, shell beds and deep grass is paramount. The bass are now moving to the secondary creeks off the spawning coves; it just takes a stump or curve or point on the bottom, and you can load the boat. The secondary creeks are found by looking for the red line notations noted on your GPS maps; you can also note them by the contour breaks on your map. When you see deeper water inside the coves on your maps that attach somewhere near the main river ledges explore it as it holds fish this time of year.

Lastly, use angles to find fish especially when you can see them stacked up on your Lowrance Structure Scan! As your working the secondary creek if you see a stump or shell bed covered in fish work them by changing presentation angles to get a bite it can mean all the difference in the world.