March is really the signal to anglers that spring fishing has arrived. From warmer days, daylight savings time giving us until 7pm to fish and the movement of many different species of fish from their winter deep haunts on the main lake to the bays to begin their annual migration towards the spawn. It really is one of the best times to be on Kentucky Lake.
March provides many great opportunities for fishing. We will give you several of our best bets from anglers from our talented pool of anglers to help you get on more fish this month and throughout the whole spring.
Best Bet for March Fishing: Black Bass
This time of year the smallmouth and largemouth bass start showing back up in more easily accessible places and anglers can really have some of the best days of the year fishing for both varieties of black bass. The weather and water color can dictate what patterns will work best.
For instance this year, the water has been very muddy. So largemouth bass are going to show up a lot shallower this time of year and react more to power fishing lures and techniques like spinnerbaits, chatter baits and shallow running crankbaits or lipless crankbaits. Loud aggressive colors and sounds can make for the better options when the water is muddy and off colored in the bays and creek arms.
Start on the first few points and pockets leading into the bay and work your way back. You should intersect bass on their way to feeding areas, targeting shallow flooded cover like laydowns, stumps, and rocky shorelines. Places where shad and crawfish may be abundant.
Deeper ditches leading to the backs of pockets or bays can also group fish up and it’s not uncommon to catch a boatload of fish from one spot with a bait like a lipless crankbait when you find a school of fish feeding in a pocket or bay like this, using the ditches to herd bait almost like mini ledges.
Smallmouth will be on bars and points leading into the bays and also moving forward to their spawning habitat. A lot of smallmouth spawn on the first points and pockets in the bays and you can often find them on bars and points near the mouth of the bays in March. There will still be bass on the main lake as well but fish will be funneling towards the shallow areas to feed and prepare to spawn.
Typically smallmouth will spawn before the largemouth and can start spawning in water as cool as 58 degrees but mid 60s would be the preferred water temps. As well as longer days, full moon phases.
Alabama rigs and jerkbaits can be good for smallmouths early in March and jerkbaits, swimbaits, and jigs get better the further towards April we go. Baits like a tube also will get better as the water warms up. As will other soft plastic craws and stick baits.
Other Good Bets for March: White & Black Crappie
Crappie fishing begins to peak in March and April and this is arguably the time of year you will see the biggest crappie caught. It’s usually dynamite in both months for crappie coming shallow to spawn on shallow banks, bars, stumps, brush, laydowns, stake beds and more.
A lot of white crappie will roam in March especially if the water is muddy. They can be a foot or two under the surface or just a foot or two off the bottom not near any cover but just using the warmer waters and sunlight penetration to warm their eggs before the move to the beds to spawn.
A plethora of techniques are good in March and going into April. Casting jigs to brush and fish spotted on electronics is good. A long rod jigging pole lowering jigs into wood cover is very good this time of year, again if the water is dirty and the fish can’t see well enough to chase a swimming jig. Pushing jigs with a spider rig setup and long line slow trolling lures like Road Runners can be good this time of year as well.
As we get warmer waters towards the end of March going into April, the shallow techniques will take over like casting light jigs, fishing a jig under a float and long polling jigs in shallow cover all effectively catch big crappie this time of year.
Focus on brighter contrast colors in muddier water and more natural colors like translucent shad hues in cleaner water. The dirtier the water, the heavier the line you can get away with. With increased fishing pressure, the crappie can get line shy in cleaner water so don’t be afraid to drop down to 4-pound line at times to get some more bites, especially casting.
Focus on high spots in pockets and bays and shallow flats towards the backs of bays with cover on them as you progress in the spring.
Another Good Bite: Shellcrackers
Most people won’t get to chasing gills and shellcrackers until May, but they actually make their way out of deeper waters into the bays this time of year as well. You can look for them on steeper lead in banks into the bays with rocks and shells on them as well as deeper cover like big laydown trees near deep water, deeper brush piles, deeper docks and more.
As the water continues to warm, they will move shallower and shallower so work from structure in the mouths of the bays to shallow cover in the backs of the bays as the spring progresses.
Small jigs, drop shot rigs with red worms or crickets and bobbers and jigs or bait can all work at different times in March and April. But often we are fishing a 1/16 -ounce jig with a small plastic to find areas of gills or shellcrackers and then hunkering down when we find them.
