TAKEOFF
SCENARIOS
PATTERNING PUMPKINSEEDS
When Bass KeY on puMpKinseed sunfish and otheR BReaM,
the shalloW suMMeR Bite can Be Red-hot
groups, in the shade and under docks,”
Batts says. “the bass will stay up there
and ambush them in the same places.”
still-Water lakes
Batts uses this technique frequently
on lake sinclair and lake oconee,
which are both reservoirs on the
oconee River, and lake tobesofkee,
another reservoir about an hour from
sinclair. none has much current flow,
which Batts credits for the summer-
long shallow bite.
arSo
When it starts
24
depending on the water tempera-
ture and other environmental factors,
the bream bite can kick in anywhere
from late april to early May in Batts’
region. usually, after the biggest wave
of bass leaves the beds, the threadfin
shad will spawn and then bream will
follow, with some overlap.
Batts says pumpkinseeds are more
reliable in his area lakes than other
types of bream because they “steadily
spawn” in waves throughout the warm
months and then stick arou nd.
“they don’t just spawn and go out to
deep water. they’ll hang around in little
Clayton Batts
“it can be 110 degrees out there
and they’ll still be in shallow water,”
he says of the bass in those three
lakes. “With lakes with current, such
as eufaula and Kentucky lake, the
main factor that i’ve noticed is that
the thermocline goes deep. the fish
can live deeper, and the fish will get
out. here on oconee and sinclair,
and on tobesofkee, they don’t move
as much water, and the thermocline
gets so severe that they can’t get out
there deep. on your electronics,
once you get in 12 feet of water, it’s
nothing but static. You can’t even see
through it.”
t
argeting bream-eating bass with
a topwater is nothing new to
southern bass anglers, but not
everyone is skillful at identifying where
and when the bite is best or fully capi-
talizing on the pattern.
Georgia pro clayton Batts has the
bream pattern – more specifically, the
pumpkinseed sunfish pattern – pretty
well dialed in from the time the bass
leave the beds until summer ends, and
his system produces mega-stringers
every year.
By Curtis Niedermier
target areas
Find areas with these three key
features, and you’ll find pumpkin-
seeds and other bream either spawn-
ing or feeding.
1. Sandy bottoms – Sand is best,
but if a lake doesn’t have much sand
or is more of a rock lake, batts says to
look in the flattest pockets.
2. Small cuts – “i don’t necessarily
like the backs of pockets. they [bass
and bream] have to come so far from
the main lake to get there,” says batts.
“little jut-ins off the main lake that
have sand on them are best.”
3. Shallow water – “i like it shallow,
like 2 feet or a foot, but i’d probably
say a foot to 3 is the range.”
Key Baits, Key targets
according to Batts, the pumpkin-
seed pattern doesn’t produce tremen-
dous numbers of bass, but it produces
mammoth limits. to catch them, the
most important strategy is to cover
miles of good-looking water.
“You don’t want to keep casting to one
place,” he says. “You want to have the
trolling motor on 40 and keep moving.”
FlWFIshInG.com I maY-june 2017