Having fished all his life for spotted bass on Alabama’s Coosa River lakes, bass pro Kyle Mabrey knows what the spots should be doing any given day, based on water temperature, current and other conditions. That said, the fish don’t always do what they should. Therefore, Mabrey always begins a day with a “searching” mentality.
Mabrey does much of his late spring and summer fishing with a crankbait, which makes the hunt easy because he considers crankbaits outstanding search baits. Early in a day, he’ll cover a lot of spots and crank a range of depths, fishing structure from a variety of angles and mixing up his retrieves.
“Once you find spotted bass on a certain type structure and see how they are relating to it this time of year, you usually can reproduce the pattern all over the lake and keep finding fish,” Mabrey said.
Generally speaking, water temperature is the No. 1 factor that controls depth the spots will use and Mabrey’s specific approach. If the temperature is in the 70- to 75-degree range, he looks for the fish to be in the 6- to 10-foot range and he’ll target them with a Bomber Model 7A in chartreuse shad or black pearl.
Once the water temperature breaks the 75-degree mark, Mabrey looks for more fish in the 8- to 12-foot range and uses a citrus shad or pearl white Bomber Fat Free Shad, Jr. As summer hits harder, the fish drop a little deeper, usually spending most of their time in the 12- to 16-foot range, and Mabrey turns to a chartreuse shad or sparkle shad Fat Free Shad (new colors in the Junior size, being introduced by Bomber that haven’t quite hit the market yet).
“I keep my color selection very simple,” Mabrey said. “Except for the pearl white, all are shad patterns, which are natural picks because the spotted bass are eating shad.”
Mabrey’s normal presentation, like his bait selection, varies with water temperatures. When the water is at the cool end of the spectrum, he cranks very steadily. As the water warms and the fish move down in the water column, he turns to stop-and-go retrieves, pausing every three our four cranks, especially after the bait bumps bottom or hits some type of cover.
Throughout spring and summer, Mabrey finds big spots in his home lakes on main-lake structure, and the best crankbait bite by far occurs when water is being pulled through the lakes. “You really need that current,” he said.
Mabrey has found that actively feeding spotted bass typically hold on the upstream sides of points and humps or right on top of them, facing into the current. Therefore, he will try to position his boat just downstream and cast past the structure, so that his bait will be at the right depth when he crosses the prime zone.
Mabrey also will explore the downstream side of a break if he doesn’t get hit on the top side, and he will experiment with angles. More often than not, though, the most active fish are in the current, waiting for a meal to get carried overhead.