Lake Seminole Fishing Report April 2012

Seminole: Level: 0.7 feet below full pool. Temp: 75 degrees. Clarity: Slight stain.

Bass: Good. Matt Baty reports, “The bass are shallow right now and are spawning. Some bass have already spawned and are getting ready for a postspawn feeding frenzy. For spawning bass, look for sandy areas in 1 to 4 feet of water. Most bass will have a crater fanned out with shell present, and the bed will be easy to locate. Once you have located a bedding bass, there are several baits that will entice strikes. I have been having success using two baits—a Big Bite Baits Warmouth and Big Bite Baits 8-inch Kriet Tail lizard. Colors really don’t make that much of a difference, although I usually try and match a bream color. I usually go with the Warmouth first, and if the bass won’t bite it, most of the time they will bite the lizard. When rigging both of these baits, use a 1/4-oz. tungsten weight and a 5/0 Gamakatsu EWG hook and at least 16-lb. Sunline Flourocarbon. Double Power-Poles are really nice when bed fishing. While searching for bedding bass, you can throw a shallow-running crankbait around pepper grass and hydrilla beds. When using this technique, I go with two different crankbaits, either a Stanford Cedar Shad Patriot 1.5 in summer color, or a Spro Little John in nasty shad. For postspawn bass, fish the first and second breaklines that are near the sandbars. The first breakline usually ranges from 7 to 10 feet, and the second breakline usually ranges from 10 to 15 feet. The bass will usually be on one or the other. The best breaklines are the ones that have hydrilla growing from the bottom and contain a lot of points and cuts in the grass. You can fish the areas with a crankbait, spinnerbait or a Carolina-rigged finesse worm.”