Kevin Van Dam Forums

Im fishing for largemouth on the nest. Nearly every time i throw near or drag my bait over there nest they run off and come back. any suggestions? also what’s good baits to use for them on the nest?

Senko, lizard, or beaver are my top 3. Keep your bait on the bed. If they are turning and coming back (in a relatively short amount of time) then they should be catchable. Bed fishing is tedious, be patient.

When you get your bait to the nest leave it there.  It can take awhile for the bass to grab it.  You’ll have to be ready to swing when they do - remember they’re not eating, they’re guarding; so most of the time they will spit your lure out quickly.

I was out fishing bedded fish the other day and ended up just leaving almost all my plastics on the deck with me. I would get a tap, It would swim off with my lure not in its mouth, and then drop it. So I would reel in and thread on a new plastic and pitch it back out there. after pissing them off enough and having them see different lures I would get some in the boat, but I had to just let the bait sit in the nest for them to eat it. They committed the most on baby rage craws, small woolyhawgtails, lizards, and jackall flickshake worms. I had them rigged mostly on 1/8oz shakey head jigs.

Often times if you are in clear water you will be able to find a sweet spot on the bed that they respond to most when your lure is there. Also, if they swim off and get spooked easy, they may not be locked on the bed.

Be patient and you’ll get on em.

I mainly use a green pumpkin exposed tube bait.  But as B2Fish states, baby rage craws work well too because their claws float up in a fighting stance.  Also along with B2Fish, there is a spot within the nest that really excites them, find that spot and leave it in there until the fish returns then just barely jiggle it.  I’ve found LM allot harder to catch off a bed then SM.  Patience.

Do you think the bass get trained to the fact that sooner (impatient me) or later the trespassing bait is going to leave?

I believe that a bass with a brain the size of my pinky fingernail cannot reason.  If that fish is committed to the nest sooner (not always) or later they will get angry enough to either eat or remove the bait from the nest.  It may be that you have to present several different options to them until you find the one that makes it mad enough to bite.  It doesn’t help if the fish can see you either.  You may have to mark the spot and back off until you can’t see each other.  Many times I find what I think is the sweet spot within the bed, put my bait in there and back off until they can’t see me keeping my line taunt for any bite.  I don’t make a habit of stressing the fish while they are bedding, but fish for them if I have to during a tournament.

RiverRat - 26 April 2012 06:29 PM

Do you think the bass get trained to the fact that sooner (impatient me) or later the trespassing bait is going to leave?

I don’t think they do.  I got the same bass three times in one day.  This male was sitting on a bed and I brought a Senko within about two feet of the bed and he attack; I let him go and watched him swim straight back to the bed; next cast he attacked the Senko again - this was 15 seconds after I let him go.  On the 2nd release he swam back to the bed and didn’t hit the lure again after about 5 casts.  About an hour later I came back and he was still there; I cast the Senko his way and again attack.

I stopped messing with him that.

I ran into this situation last year and the only thing that I could get them to pick up was a chartreuse senko.