Fly Fishing the Bass Spawn
By Cliff Hilbert

Last year was the first time I have ever fished the bass spawn, so the information I put forth in this article is surely not from an expert. However, I was very, very successful fishing the spawn at Lake Fork last year so I feel that there are things people can learn from my experience. How successful? How about a 9 lb, a 7-2 a 7, two 6s, and over 20 bass between 3 – 5 lbs, plus a bunch of smaller ones? I caught them all in one area of Lake Fork fishing out of my 10’ Water Spider boat, and all on a 9’ – 6/7-wt St. Croix Imperial rod loaded with Scientific Anglers GPX Mastery Series Floating Line, with 17 lb test mono as a leader.

I’m not a person who can go to a trout stream and see the trout in the water. I haven’t been trout fishing but about 5 years and haven’t trained myself to “see into� the water yet. By the same token, I’ve never trained myself to sight fish for bass either. But Lake Fork offers opportunity to sight fish for bass for even someone like myself . Most of the beds I saw were in 2-5’ of water and were easy to spot because of the rounded, cleared-out areas that the bass fan for their beds. These were not in the heavy grass, they were made in the scum on the bottom. When the bottom is covered with dark green scum (moss-like vegetation), the cleared-out, rounded areas are very easy to spot. That’s not to say that all bass beds are in the scum because at Bellwood Lake in Tyler I have caught bedding bass that were in the grass in 3-6’ of water and I couldn’t see them