It's Bass Season and the Fishing is Good

Spring and early summer is bass season, no matter where you live in the country. And in some spots, the fishing is so good that it's almost legendary for record-sized lunkers that will be talked about for years to come.

Out west in California, keep Clear Lake and the California Delta on your to-do list this spring. Further east in the heart of Texas, no bass-fishing bucket list is considered complete without a visit to lunker factories like O.H. Ivie, Lake Fork, Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend.

How about a bass-fishing excursion in the Deep South? You'll certainly want to visit Alabama's Lake Guntersville. In Florida, a stop at Lake Okeechobee, the Kissimmee Chain near Orlando, or the St. John’s River is a must. In South Carolina, you’ll want to visit legendary Santee-Cooper, while over in Tennessee, Chickamauga tops many bass-angling list.

Up North, there’s all kinds of water bodies loaded up with largemouths and smallmouths, including Michigan’s Lake St. Clair, Minnesota’s Lake Minnetonka, Wisconsin’s Mississippi River backwaters near Lacrosse, Ohio’s vast Lake Erie, New York’s Niagara River and Oneida Lake and Vermont’s renowned Lake Champlain.

No matter where you live in America, it’s bass season and the fishing is good!

And as Outdoor Sportsman Group’s Jeff Weakley points out, Saturday mornings at this time of the year are tailor-made for bass-catching fun, regardless of your zip code. And it’s not only the multiple bass-catching locations that shine at this time of year, but also the numerous ways you can catch them.

As bass wrap up their spawning chores down South and ensure the next generation of lunkers are secure, they are eager for something, anything, to eat.

If you're in the middle part of the U.S., then bass are doing a little bit of everything right now in the pre-spawn, the spawn and the post-spawn phases of spring. That means you can catch them shallow, deep or somewhere in between.

And if you’re fishing up in the North Country where warm water seasons are opening up, bass tend to stay shallow, glad that water is liquid again after ice-out, and ready to go through the annual breeding cycle as some of the nation’s top bass waters get resupplied for years to come.

To catch these bass in whatever region you live and fish in, you’ll want to have the right tools. Up North, think Texas-rigged soft plastic creature baits or jigs tipped with some sort of soft-plastic trailer as you probe the shadowy, sandy pockets of vegetation near the shoreline.

Further south on the map, Weakley notes—and he’s a freshwater and saltwater angling expert as the executive editor for OSG’s Florida Sportsman magazine—that spinnerbaits and topwaters are good choices right now because the bass are crushing them on a post-spawn bite.

Also drawing fast-and-furious action are seasonal occurrences like the shad spawn near rocks and docks in the southland. Toss a silver-hued jerkbait or swimbait in the early morning haze near such spots and get ready for a big pull at the end of your line. And where bluegills and other sunfish are making saucer-shaped spawning beds, a bream-colored squarebill crankbait is sure to draw a vicious strike from a big old bass hanging around the edges. And don’t forget the soft, collapsible topwater frogs because the bass sure won’t!

You Need to be Ready

On any of these adventures for America's familiar green fish, the largemouth bass, or its equally popular piscatorial cousin, the smallmouth bass, you'll want to make sure that you've got the right tools in your boat, kayak, or canoe so you can create a day's worth of fish-catching memories from your time spent on the water.

And before or after your day on your local bass water the lawn is usually beckoning, too, and that's another place where you’ll want the right tools to get the job done quickly and correctly. If your garage or storage shed includes lawn tools like the 60-inch Toro Z Master® 2000 Series HDX with MyRIDE® Suspension System zero turn mower, then your weekly yardwork efforts will be a breeze during the Great American Spring '23!

Have a big lawn that requires a lot of power and cutting ability? Like all Toro products, this particular model delivers what you need for lawn care, making quick work of mowing big yards and properties up to five acres or more, thanks to the 23.5 hp Kawasaki FX engine with heavy-duty air cleaner, commercial grade hydros and speeds up to 10 mph.

Add in the adjustable MyRIDE Suspension System to isolate your body from the bumps and vibrations of rough turf, so you get a clean, even cut on any terrain without feeling sore the next day.

A lawncare investment built to last for years to come, the seven-gauge high-strength tubular steel TURBO FORCE® Cutting Deck, bullnose bumper and aggressive-tread 24-inch Voodoo Trac Drive Tires will get yards trimmed up quickly and handle any challenging yards and spaces like a champ. And since big mowing chores aren’t just long stretches of straight-line cutting, the rubber discharge chute and zero-turn mowing radius allow for tight trimming around fence lines, air conditioning units, storage sheds, and more.

There's also a USB port to keep your phone charged—you know, for the fish-catching photos to come later in the day!—along with a cup holder and storage space. You can even customize your Toro ride with optional lights, a bucket holder, a string trimmer mount, a bagger mount and up to 20 different attachments.

All of this is designed to deliver a top-quality lawn mower from Toro, one created to help make your yard work chores simple and fast so you can get on to the more important things in life.

Like backing your bass boat off the trailer and onto the water for a day of springtime fishing fun. And maybe a fish-bragging selfie or two to your friends, who are still stuck in the yard while you exclaim "Fish on!" and reach for the net.