Pre-spawn, post-spawn: Yeah, we've got it all
White bass, crappie, largemouth, the spawn's been on for two months
Almost two months ago I wrote about red buds blooming, dogwoods blooming, crappies on the bank and white bass and spoonbill moving upriver. I also noted that the weather was cooling and upwards of 4 inches of rain had just fallen.
Well, the blooms are well off the trees at this point but here in mid-May we’ve got reports of crappie on the banks at Grand Lake, white bass still hitting minnows on Grand River and taking flies in creeks off Tenkiller and Fort Gibson and yet another bout of cool weather and 4 to 5 inches or rain in the forecast.
Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation fisheries biologist Josh Johnston has seen it up close with largemouth bass this season.
While doing genetics work on Florida-strain largemouth he’s seen the spawn go on—and on.
“When we were shocking the first part of April we had pre-spawners, post-spawners and spawning females, and that’s something you expect. There is always a peak of the spawn and there are some pre- and post spawn fish. It doesn’t all happen at once. Then last week we did some work at Bixhoma. That’s not a big lake and you’d think they would be done. But about a quarter of the females in our sample were still pre-spawn.”
While anglers talk about “the spawn,” it really always has been a drawn-out affair for most species and the peak of activity and on any given body of water, or section of a reservoir, at matter of conditions only the fish in that particular water body can determine. There always is a curve.
“It’s just pronounced this year, and maybe it’s starting to be more of a new normal,” Johnston said.
It’s perhaps most pronounced with white bass, known for spawning in water that is in the mid-50s and into the 60s, when there is good flow in the rivers and creeks. Water temperatures have climbed into the mid-60s and dropped right back to the 60-degree mark in recent weeks.
Guide Gordie Montgomery posted on Facebook early this week normally is done with sand bass on the Grand River but he was still there filling up the livewell early this week and expected the bite to last through the weekend. The guide said he can only remember two other years he’s been on the river catching spawning white bass this late in the spring.
“Minnows are best, though, it’s pretty tough with artificials,” he texted.
Johnston said the weather is the culprit.
“We had a good warm spell in late March with stable water and temperatures rising, then it cooled off and we had rain and for about five weeks it flat-lined. Then it cooled off again and every other weekend we’ve been getting a cold front and cold rain,” he said. “It’s normal stuff but it’s been way more pronounced this year.”
As long as they have conditions with flow and temperatures in the low 60s the male white bass will continue to “do what they do,” Johnston said. “Any time that flow is there they will make those kinds of pushes.”
How catchable those fish might be and whether bigger females will be among them is another question, but they will be responding to that flow, he said.
This late run and what fish are doing now, and after this week with the coming rainfall, will be well worth noting. This could be our new normal.
“If you look back to about 2015 this has been almost our new normal kind of spring,” Johnston said. “We might as well be ready for a frost in late April or May and floods from January through June.”
For many years December and January were Oklahoma’s driest months. A big rain, or several rains, might hit in May and June but the earth was thirsty and much of it soaked in.
“Now we’re starting out the spring with everything saturated and as biologists and as sportsmen we’re dealing with weather patterns we haven’t had to deal with before,” he said.
