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Learn how a Florida sight-fishing expert finds big bass on beds and coaxes those fish into biting.

Northern Florida tournament regulars know.

If bass have begun moving onto beds and Tim Mann is fishing a tournament, he will be someone to watch, come weigh-in time. A veteran tournament angler who considers the St Johns River home waters, Mann is a master at sight fishing. He and tournament partners have notched countless tournament wins over the years and have brought some monstrous bags to the scales.

Mann has an uncanny knack for finding the right caliber of bedding fish and figuring out how to catch those fish. We talked with Mann about his approach and how it helps set him apart in so many spring tournaments.

Simple lizards sometimes get forgotten for modern plastic shapes, but to overlook the sheer bass-catching power of a lizard can be a major mistake.

Bass anglers began fishing with soft rubber worms about 70 years ago, before technology, design and innovation spurred new materials and creations. Softer plastics soon made their way into the market as did replicas of crayfish, minnows and the plain but popular lizard.

Spring bass fishing with lizards is a combination akin to peas and carrots. They’re a natural pair. Spring is when lizards and salamanders get active, with the latter most prominent around inlets, creeks and shallow areas, where bass like to spawn, which makes salamanders top enemies of bass.

Do you ever wonder which crawfish-imitating soft plastic lure would work best for the way you want to fish? We’ll look at distinguishing features to help you make the best decision.

Bass love crawfish. This much we know. Crawfish provide important forage to all black bass species, and the craws’ locations and behavior dictate much about the bass’ locations and behavior.

Because crawfish offer such an important food source and because they use a broad range of habitats, countless lures are designed to match crawfish in their profile, action and/or color patterns. Interestingly, not all crawfish-imitating lures look alike. In fact, even if you take a single category, such as soft plastic crawfish-imitating lures, they take on a broad range of shapes. That’s because different crawfish lures are designed with different fishing situations in mind.

Crankbaits have almost become foreign to modern anglers in the pre-spawn in exchange for umbrella rigs, modern jerk baits, or the plethora of soft plastic rigs available now. But the reliable mid depth crankbait is still catching solid bags for anglers that choose to take that route. Bass tend to “hang out” in the 4-10 feet zone this time of year before heading to the pockets to spawn so a crankbait can be a great way to collide with some healthy pre-spawners. In our blog this week I will go over three of the best picks for cranking up some excellent bass fishing during the pre-spawn months.

Learn how a crappie lure’s profile affects it action and appearance in the water and how to choose the best bait for every situation.

Do you ever look at soft-plastic lures designed for crappie fishing and wonder why they come in such a broad range of shapes? If so, the next question might be which specific bait to choose for a given situation. Here, we will lessen the mystery by comparing the profiles and features of a handful of popular Bobby Garland Crappie Baits, looking at how those distinctions affect each bait’s movements and appearance in the water.

Considering a specific bait’s design and how it swims or falls through the water can make it much easier to select the best bait for conditions and for the technique you intend to use.

YUM Dingers are one of the easiest soft plastic lures to catch fish on in the entire massive realm of options that are out there for anglers. The small “do-nothing” shape and action seems to always catch fish when other lures let you down. But, did you know there are several other options within the Dinger family of lures? There are three different types of Dingers with a few sizes to each one.

You read that title correctly. The BOOYAH Covert Series spinnerbait has some new options for when things go “dark.” The new Night Time Series Covert has been added to the line for night fishing or when water gets extremely muddy.

When asking Jason Christie why this addition had to be made to the line, he jokingly said, “to fish at night…”, but after some laughs, he gave me some real knowledge of why this lure had to join the ranks with the other highly successful Covert series models.

When crappie move shallow during spring, adding the right float to a rig allows for better targeted and more effective presentations of crappie jigs or live bait.

“The thrill of bank fishing with a float never gets old,” said Brad Bowles “I don’t care how old you get.”

Few anglers would disagree with Bowles, a crappie tournament angler and expert bank angler on Barren River Lake in Kentucky. “I love to bank fish around riprap under or around bridges on Barren River Lake. The bridge areas are normally the mouth of a migration point for crappie and typically warm up first,” he said.

Barren River Lake gets drawn down as much as 24 feet during winter in anticipation of rising flood waters. Floating debris often makes fishing from a boat dangerous. However, bridges become pinch points, making them prime areas to fish for crappie from the bank.

The best time of year to catch trophy largemouth bass is when they transition from their winter patterns into the pre-spawn phase. Egg-laden lunkers are pounds heavier at this time than they will be after spawning. Plus, they stage in predictable places and chow down before moving onto beds.

Bear in mind that bass are sluggish during the early pre-spawn because the water is typically in the 40s in most parts of the country. They will bite, but you must select the right lures and fish them effectively in the places where bass hang out prior to spawning.