The much awaited arrival of March signals the beginning of shallow pre-spawn bass activity. These March bass are cruising the shallows in search of food to bulk up for the stressful spawning cycle yet to come.
Our current Lake Travis water temperature varies from 55 to 58 degrees. The actual spawn kicks in once the water reaches the 60 to 65 degrees zone.
It is important to cover lots of water with a variety of search baits. These include swimbaits, grubs, crankbaits and jerkbaits.
Once you encounter several strikes in a small section of shoreline, it is best to slow down and offer the fish a change of pace by bottom crawling a soft plastic or jig.
This tactic will often greatly increase your catch. Suspended bass are looking upward to feed on the horizontal moving lures, while the crawfish seekers are hugging the bottom.
Lately a shaky head jig presentation has produced a good number of quality black bass in the 5- to 12-foot depths. Hard rock, gravel and sandy bottoms produce best in the early spring.
Best plastics have been the Strike King Baby Rage Craw, Zoom Trick Worm, Zoom Baby Brush Hog and the Z-Man Finesse TRD.
A light 1/8-ounce jig works best when fish are shallow. Many bass will attack your plastic on the initial fall or just after you begin a slow pull and twitch retrieve.
As for the swimming lures, a crawfish hued Rapala DT-6 and a smoke glitter curly tail grub will keep you setting the hook. Slow retrieves are again the key to success in the cold water of March.
For updates or a guided excursion call 512-261-3644.
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