This is my favorite time of year. Early spring in Florida is beautiful and the fishing is fantastic. We still get hit with good hard cold fronts that linger for a few days and the fishing gets tough but neither the weather nor the poor fishing lasts long. Bass are normally in all three stages of the spawn and you can catch them on whatever you want to throw.

There always seems to be a good morning shad bite anywhere in the sunshine state. This bite is fast and furious and only lasts a little while once the sun gets up. Shad will spawn along any kind of hard cover; boat docks, seawalls, hard grass lines, and riprap banks. Both post spawn and pre spawn fish are there gorging for the first hour or so in the morning. Look to nature to provide some clues to help locate a shad spawn. Bait birds standing along the shoreline are a great indicator that there is a shad spawn going on. They have to eat too. Any kind of shad imitating lure will get the job done here. There will always be one bait that seems to trigger the bass to bite better than others. You will have to quickly cycle through a couple of baits to find the one they want that day. A white spinner bait or a small crankbait are great places to start.

After the sun gets up and the shad bite begins to wane, I start transitioning my lure selection to more bream and sunfish imitating lures, your greens and browns. Bass are very territorial this time of year and don’t like a bream wandering into their area. The bites are typically quite vicious and are typically more your trophy-sized fish.

The next couple of months will be some of the best fishing of the year throughout the entire country. Get out there and catch your trophy. Remember to always take a kid fishing. Memories are made in the outdoors, not in front of a TV screen.