Simple Spring Fishing Fun

With the sun shining warm and bright and fresh memories of the fish biting well on Saturday when Asher and I visited the beaver pond, Nathaniel and I had to slip back over there for a while after I finished a story yesterday afternoon. The spring bite doesn't last forever, and there only so many days that lend themselves well to pond outings.

The fish behaved exactly as we hoped, readily taking moving baits, and we landed a baker's dozen largemouths, plus one bonus bluegill, in maybe an hour and a half of fishing. We also lost a few fish partway back to the boat and had a quite a few other short strikes.

Nathaniel even got to catch a few fish on a buzzbait -- something he had been waiting to do all spring. The topwater bite will only get stronger as the water warms. Our best-producing bait was a 2.75-inch YUM Money Craw rigged weedless and weightless on a 2/0 Daiichi Bleeding Bait Offset Worm Hook and swam steadily just beneath the surface.

My bluegill, which was fish species No. 5 on my 2013 catch list, hit a Money Craw.

If you have small waters that hold decent bass populations close to home and can get out when the spring bite gets good (right now in North Georgia) don't miss those opportunities Even if you only can fish for an hour or two after work, when the bass are shallow and aggressive, the fishing is just plain fun.

You don't have to think a lot. Just cast to obvious shallow targets, keep a bait moving steadily and enjoy the fish-catching fun. I like to swim weightless soft plastics that have a lot of action such as a Money Craw. Soft plastic jerkbaits and square-bill crankbaits also do really well for the same style of fishing. When the bass are shallow and active, they really don't have to be that big to serve up huge fun.