Wellspring of Bass
the middle of the channel, and you could
see a big ol’ circle with a water-color dif-
ference and bubbles coming out of it.”
Keep an eye out also for above-water
springs. They might flow from a crack or
crevice, seep from a bluff wall or simply
roll down a hillside.
“We’ve got some [at Amistad] that
come in just trickling out of the side of
the banks,” Brauer says. “They’re like
mini-waterfalls coming in. We’ve got
some that run full time. Whether they’re
a waterfall or coming in underwater
depends on the lake level.
“Anytime you’ve got a current situa-
tion coming into a body of water, it’s
always going to attract baitfish. Even
though those are not big areas, you can
a lot of times catch a limit off them.”
5. Scan with electronics
Some of the real masters at finding
springs find most of them with elec-
tronics. Or they use the electronics to
dial in a spring’s location and any near-
by structure.
“A lot of times, especially as the
water gets full on the Tennessee River,
you can’t see them [visually],” says
Knight. “But in your side-scan you’ll see
46
a weird-looking round spot or some kind
of big crevice.”
In Florida, pro Tim Frederick finds
springs the same way, though usually by
chance. He says there’s usually hard
sand around them, but the source of the
spring can be very obvious.
“You can graph over it with 2-D sonar,
and you’re going to see it. It looks like a
vein. You’ll go over a hole, and it’ll go to a
softer bottom. It’ll go way down on your
screen, like the bottom will drop out of it.”
Fish the Area,
Fish the Spot
On the Tennessee River, Knight says
there are times he can park in a spot and
hammer fish by casting directly to the
source of a spring, which might be the
size of a truck bed – give or take.
“Whenever you catch so many out of a
little hole like that, I wonder about some
kind of aquifer, or some type of underwa-
ter tunnel that could be connected, like
some secret, magic bass world,” says
Knight. “I get off in some weird thoughts
about it sometimes because you might be
sitting there, and it’s 2 feet deep on this
huge 10-acre flat, and there’s one spring
that’s the size of a pickup truck bed, and
you catch 30 or 40 bass out of it. Where
do they come from? How are they not just
stacked and you see fins and tails sticking
out of the water?”
On other reservoirs, springs bubble
up into deep holes big enough to park in
the middle and cast around. A drop-off
or grass edge near the spring could be
good. Or the effects of the spring might
make an entire pocket productive.
“At Grand, I just kind of fish the
area,” says McCaghren. “They’re not big,
but the fish are still set up there. They’ll
be on the little points or rock changes.
Nowadays, they’re on docks, but when I
started fishing them there was about a
third as many docks.”
In Florida, spring fishing can be very
area-driven, too. FLW pro Brandon
McMillan has enjoyed some successful
outings on the Harris Chain around
New Years, taking advantage of spring-
fed canals where bass move up early to
spawn.
“They’re pretty much community
holes,” he says. “They’re the ones that
are gin-clear, and they stay relatively the
same temp.”
McMillan figures the canals are
home to a solid population of resident
FLWFISHING.COM | MAJORLEAGUEFISHING.COM | APRIL-MAY 2020