“At this time of year, color can’t be overemphasized,” he said. “Match your skirt and trailer colors to the prevailing colors of the bluegills. Greens, browns and oranges are especially important. I carry several hues of each.”

Creature baits come into play at this time, too. Anything that looks big, ugly and mean will do the trick, so long as it matches the prevailing bluegill colors. Most anglers Texas rig these baits and then walk or drag them along the bottom near likely nesting sites. Slow and careful are the watchwords for this technique. Make a big female bass think your bait is after her eggs and see what she does!

Once the bass have, or are, spawning, this is when soft-plastic, minnow-imitating baits come into their own. There are hundreds of them on the market. Menendez’s choice is the Z Too fished on a Donkey Rig. It’s a double bait setup that is renowned for attracting feeding post-spawn bass and frequently catches doubles. (If you think catching one bass is fun, try catching two at the same time, each fighting to free itself without regard for what the other one is doing.)

There are a number of ways to make a double rig. The easiest is to tie your main line to the center ring of a three-way swivel. Then tie taglines to each of the other two rigs. Make them different lengths. After attaching hooks to the taglines, thread a minnow-imitating bait onto each hook. On a good day, the action can be beyond belief.

This is also the time that lipless, flat-sided crankbaits make a good choice. Most anglers toss them in shallow water near inflows, such as creeks and ditches that have warmed from the spring rains. If there’s a little emerging grass in the area, so much the better.

There really isn’t a bad way to fish these lures. They’ll catch fish if you simply throw them out and wind them back in. They’ll also catch fish when they’re hopped along the bottom, in a jig-like manner. Try everything until you know how they like it. Top selections include Rat-L-Traps and Wild Eye Shiners.

And never, not for any reason whatsoever, overlook spinnerbaits when the water temperature is 55 degrees or warmer. There isn’t a lure in history that has withstood the test of time any better than a simple safety pin-style spinnerbait in white, chartreuse or other shad/shiner color combination.

At some point as the water warms, the crayfish will start moving. Crayfish are found in nearly every body of water. Don’t overlook crawdads as a forage base. In some waters, they’re the most important one to the fish. Therefore, they should be the most important one to you, too.

The obvious choice for baits when crawfish are active is a jig. Several designs are available. Recently, the football head styles have become popular, and for good reason. They walk along the bottom in a realistic manner and are about as snag resistant as a jig can be.

Like bluegill-imitating baits, color matters with jigs in the spring. Crayfish come in every conceivable shade of brown, black, red, orange and blue. Some of them even turn white when they shed their shells. Make sure you have a couple of the correct colors in your tackle box.