Largemouth Bass Striking Spinnerbaits with Gusto!

I went out in the rain to see if I could finally hook a good bass over three pounds. My neighborhood pond has for the past couple years been yielding loads of bass about two pounds, but none larger. Interests me that a pond's bass population can alter over time in size. It used to be we caught loads from nine to 12 inches, and a 14-incher was the exception. We did catch some over three pounds, and four years ago my son caught a five-pounder and two others over four. I can't account for the shift to larger-size bass, but I am wondering if I'm going to hook a real lunker at all in the pond this year beyond whatever took that Senko a couple weeks ago and tore off on a run. I can't be absolutely certain that bass was any bigger, since a two-pounder sometimes feels much larger at first.

For the first five or ten minutes today I couldn't buy a hit. I began to think that had I brought along a Husky Jerk suspending minnow plug to work it slow, I might catch one. I have done so here in cold water before, but then I thought it didn't matter. I was interested in whether or not bass would respond in a warm water way. I began to think my claim about two weeks ago that we've already reached the warm water season beyond the early season fluctations with real cold water was bogus. It never really got out of the low 40's yesterday, and now it's in the low 50's or so.

Then I got a jolt way out in the middle.

The pond is shallow. It's about three, maybe four feet out there. But I know from experience these fish orient to very shallow water around the edges as well as deeper, and even to the edge between where the difference may be a foot of depth.

In little over a half hour total I caught eight bass on the 3/8th-ounce black Colorado blade spinnerbait, two of these just over two pounds, the rest of them close to two pounds. I usually just grab a lure or two and go, the pond in close walking distance, and the irony today is that the spinnerbait I previously used has a larger blade commanding a slower retrieve you'd think would be appropriate today. But what the hell; I got the bass chasing. All of these bass struck out in the middle. Certainly they were not rolling over spinnerbait wakes at the surface, but they were pouncing on that lure for sure. This was not true cold water fishing at all.