Last month, we caught up with Cliff Pace to talk about late winter tactics for targeting bass and redfish in the Louisiana Delta. Although winter hasn’t loosened its grip completely, we are seeing longer, warmer days, and the fish are starting to move. Cliff goes over how he’s adjusting to this change and the two rods he’s using to get the job done.
TFO: How do you adapt to the change from winter to spring and maximize your time on the water to catch more fish?
CP: In early spring, those fish are going to disperse from the winter groups that they were in during the winter, and leave those areas to push up into the shallower, flat bays and bottoms to spawn. In other words, pretty much anything that has a hard bottom without a lot of current.
The Louisiana Delta as a whole, is a very soft bottomed environment. If you can find areas where there’s quality spawn habit in the form of a hard bottom, typically, there’s going to be more than just one or two fish that move in to that area. You have to cover a lot of dead water to find those areas, but once you do, you can slow down and use your typical spawn techniques. This is when your search baits really come into play. Soft plastics primarily fished soft slowly with a very light weight are very effective for picking those fish off.
Photo: Cavin Brothers
One of my first choices to use during this time of year is the 7’2” Heavy Tactical Elite Bass Casting rod (TLE SB 726-1). I usually fish these a lot with spinner baits, chatter baits, thing of that nature.
The other rod I like to use is a 7’3” Heavy Tactical Elite (TLE MBR 736-1) for fishing soft plastics. I’ll also use this rod to fish a swim jig or a light Texas rig that I can either reel throw the grass or a weightless stick worm or something similar.
But what about cold fronts? It happens every year – a stretch of warm spring days, followed by a cold snap that takes us right back to winter. This seasonal transition can be extremely rewarding when targeting prespawn bass, but can also present some challenges when cold fronts come into play. See below for two important tips for how to find more fish in these scenarios.
