Fool's Gold

[Guest]

The Month of March is like fool's gold when it comes to fishing in the Ozarks.

It seems like every year we have a serious month of ice & snow followed by an extended warming trend.

All of the sudden, flowers have bloomed along with all the ornamental trees.

Everybody is out running around, doing yard work, catching up on honey-do's, but nobody is catching fish left & right.

Most reports that I see are people out grinding hard for a couple bites.

So far, in 4 trips I've caught 3 bass & netted a channel cat. That's it.

Anybody else find it hard to catch bass consistently during the month of March?

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

i caught over 150 crappie in a couple days last week on the in Cape Fair. Kept a couple solid limits and then just played around with them and tried different colors and patterns. Went out for an hour with a wiggle wart after we got crappie tunnel in our wrists and we caught 8 bass and another crappie

[Smallieguy87]

I rarely do well in March when it comes to bass. The water temps have gotten to the point in a lot of bodies of water around here that the wiggle wart should do pretty well.

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

we didnt fish it hard but the water was dirty and we caught them inside the creek and on the channel 45 degree banks. all were spots except one LM

[Ham]

I've enjoyed a lot of fishing success since moving up here. One of the main reasons for my success is that I learned an important lesson at a young age from one of my Dad's best fishing buddies, Dallas Cooper. Dallas really believed in fishing where they were biting rather than going to a place where the bite was off and banging your head against a wall.

I have expanded this theorum to be fish for whats biting and where they are biting. I like to fish for everything and I like to fish everywhere.

I dont struggle to catch bass early on the lakes because I would rather spend my time catching the fool out of Rainbow trout on the White River.

I don't struggle on the lakes in the heat of summer because I own kayaks and a canoe.

I don't struggle on the creeks when the water gets cold in late fall because I go back to the lake and bass fish.

I never get to fish as much as I want to, but I always have a good bite that needs to be exploited. Stay flexible.

[Guest]

Note to self:

Keep fishing Hot Lake until Late March.

When you get bored with hot lake, go find some trout or crappie that will cooperate.

[Pat Magee]

March may be a tough time to consistently catch fish but it seems like when people are catching them, they land some pretty nice sized fish. It seems like there is such a small window where fishing is successful in March. The bite seems extremely dependent on temp, clarity, level, and time of day more so then any other time of the year. I am with Ham though, I don't winter fish for bass much and I don't fish for trout during the summer very often.

I usually take the month of March to organize, clean, and prepare all my gear and equipment. I also try and plan some camping trips and day trips for the end of April, early May when the weather starts to even out a little more.