Spawn

[timinmo]

A while back we had a member mention the spawn in mid-May, I believe.  Well I was out today for a short time on one of the local flows and saw lots of beds.  I don't know what other people are seeing but in the St. Louis area it seems the spawn is going strong.  Have you guys in the southern part of the state seen the spawn going on for the last couple weeks? 

[trythisonemv]

Haven't even seen a large mouth bed yet.  Was on niangua the other day and don't see any smallie bed either.  It's almost time though.

[TroutRinger]

I was on the Little Niangua on Saturday. The water was a bit cloudy but I did not see any signs of spawning beds. 

I did catch a few nice largemouth in shallow backchannel water, but they were on long cast with a topwater. I did not go back far enough to see if they were on beds. 

[Dinkslayer]

The bass made and moved to the beds this past Friday/Saturday in my subdivision lakes. 

[Al Agnew]

River smallmouth don't all spawn at the same time.  Usually, if it's normal spring weather, they start spawning around the April full moon, but can spawn as late as early June.  Since this spring was far from normal weather, the water wasn't warm enough in April--needs to be a bit above 62 degrees consistently.  But if it doesn't get above 62 degrees by early May, they'll start spawning anyway by then.  Should be beginning by now.  High water also postpones the spawn, and high water while the fish are on the beds messes things up, but they still get some "re-spawning" done when the water goes down, as not all females dump all their eggs at the same time.  Also, the April full moon came late in the month, so they aren't that far off schedule--if it had been warm, they might have started spawning very early in April.

[timinmo]

My main curiosity was whether the stream bass in the southern part of the state were further along with the spawn.  I have seen smallies spawn in mid April and have also seen them spawning as late as the first part of June.  I think under normal conditions, whatever that is, Mid-April and pretty much done by the middle of May.  Overall I think there are always some early fish and probably a few late ones.

[Quillback]

Caught a couple of smallies on Table Rock yesterday that were around beds, I realize they aren't river fish, but they look to be spawning right now, at least some of them are.  WT was 62-63, probably a bit warmer shallow in sheltered spots.

[Johnsfolly]

I don't know about the southern stream smallies. It serms like the spots I fish in central MO they are frequently spawning into June. I find much more active post spawn fish around the 4th of July and later.

[Flysmallie]

3 hours ago, Johnsfolly said:

I don't know about the southern stream smallies. It serms like the spots I fish in central MO they are frequently spawning into June.

You can find a lot of river smallies on beds around here in June.