How do you catch bedding bass when you can’t see them? This is a common problem when dingy water, cloud cover or windy conditions prevent you from seeing what’s beneath the surface, even with polarized sunglasses. Under these conditions, you must resort to blind bed
fishing. That may sound daunting, but savvy fisherman Rob Kilby scores big by blind bed fishing every spring.
Kilby keys on the places where bass normally bed. This varies from lake to lake. He usually finds bedding bass in quiet creek arms, coves, canals and backwaters that get plenty of sunlight. Eastern banks tend to be more productive, especially early in spring, because they warm first and are protected from cold north winds.
Bass spawn on the best hard-bottom areas they can find in their given environment, usually near some type of cover. However, cover isn’t a necessity, such as when bass spawn on clean, pea-gravel bottoms. Kilby catches many spawning bass next to flooded stumps and bushes, windfalls, docks, emergent vegetation like pads and bulrushes, and submerged grass
like milfoil, coontail and hydrilla.
When shallow-water fishing catches fire in spring, many of the bass you catch are spawning fish, even if that isn’t your intention. By casting to cover, you inadvertently run your lures over beds and trigger bass to bite. This is one reason a spinnerbait is so effective during spring.
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