Sight-fishing isn’t the deal during the prespawn, but Dean said the bass won’t be hugging the bottom, either.
“On warm days, they’re going to be getting up to the top of the flats and the edges of the grass,” he said. “They will be continuously looking around for something to eat.”
Swimbaits, chiefly those worked horizontally, are top choices in this prespawn transition.
“Rat-L-Traps, Strike King’s Red Eyed Shads, Stanley Top Toads, Alabama rigs and spinnerbaits have become the most-dominant prespawn lures in the last five years,” Dean said. “They’re effective at catching large fish, small fish — anything.”
The key to success is positioning the boat so the ledges of the drains can be worked effectively, he said.
“It’s a matter of casting horizontally and working the breaklines,” Dean explained.
Bass can be found anywhere from the surface to 7 feet of water when bass begin moving toward the shallows.
If fish are in the top of the water column, Dean turns to Top Toads, working the lures hard and popping it just he would a Pop-R or Chug Bug.
“Everybody seems to think that a frog bite is a fall bite, a summer bite or night bite,” he said. “I can tell you I’ve taken many prespawn bass on frogs, and the Top Toad is designed to be worked as a topwater near grass or structure.
In the mouths of drains, he won’t hesitate to throw A-rigs (like the Flash Mob Jr.), Stanley Vibra-Wedge spinnerbaits and Stanley skirted vibrating jigs.
Red lipless crankbaits are can be deadly from January through March.
Dean’s preferred versions are Rat-L-Traps in Toledo red or white crawfish colors, along with similarly colored Red Eyed Shads.
However, swim jigs have become popular in the past five years. Dean works these lures in a steady, twitching retrieve in drains, near grass edges and on points.
“You’re casting a swim jig — not flipping or pitching it,” he said. “It’s a cast-and-retrieve bait that has become very effective in Toledo Bend.”
During the prespawn, Dean also uses Stanley SwimMax jigs in bream and crawfish colors tipped with Zoom watermelon-candy Speed Craws trailers.
This spring, Dean also will be using Egret Baits’ new freshwater VuDu Swimbaits in during the prespawn.
These 4 1/2- and 5 1/2-inch TPE-plastic lures have notched bodies so they undulate in a perfect imitation of real baitfish.
They are set to be released in high-definition colors, including bream, baby bass, wounded shad and shad.
“With all the current emphasis on swimbaits, these high-tech lures are designed to be very realistic imitations of baitfish, with perfect replication of their swimming action,” Dean said.
No matter which lure he chooses, he’ll tie them to 40-pound PowerPro braid (no leader) spooled to Lew’s Tournament Pro reels affixed to Lew’s rods varying on length from 7 feet, 6 inches to 7 feet, 11 inches.