Lakes and reservoirs get much of the attention when it comes to prespawn fishing, but true river systems can also provide quality action during the early spring before the fish lay eggs and lock down on their beds to spawn.
Just ask Bassmaster Elite Series veteran Bill Lowen, who cut his teeth on the Ohio River and has made a well-documented career out of consistently earning checks in shallow-water situations. Lowen says that while river fish are more current-oriented than those in reservoirs and lakes, prespawn fishing in rivers isn’t that much different than in other bodies of water. “In all actuality, there probably isn’t a lot of difference,” Lowen said. “You’ll have those fish that start to migrate off the lake into the pockets and into the secondary points.
Even though it’s not a river with current, they are still going to go through that same process. They are coming out of those main-river channels and main-lake areas and moving in and staging up. The same general rule of thumb applies; the only difference, really, is one is typically going to have some current and, in the other, probably not.”
