Any bass angler who can't get excited about the month of March should probably take up another sport. Regardless of where one calls home in the Sunshine State, this is a month when you can count on a significant portion of the bass in any lake being in the shallows where they are easily accessible.

Reno Alley concentrates on the bulrush beds at canal mouths when fishing Lake Istokpoga this month. Photo by William J. Bohica.

In some lakes, those bass may be in a post-spawn mode. In others, they may be actively bedding. In the northern portions of the state, the spawn has yet to start, but the bass are moving shallow during their pre-spawn.

Some lakes may be a bit "hotter" than others, but all are heating up. Here's a look at four lakes that definitely are in the "hot" mode this month.

Lake Istokpoga
Best known for its extensive offshore hydrilla beds, there can be a lot of water to sort through on this South Florida lake. But you don't necessarily have to search during the spawn. In fact, once the bass decide to bed, the lake shrinks a lot!

"If we have a mild winter, the first wave of bedding bass will normally happen in mid-January," said veteran guide Reno Alley. "After that there will be a second wave in February. If we have a cooler than normal winter, things just back up a month and the first spawn will be in February, followed by another wave in March. From an angler's perspective, though, the exact timing isn't important because once the first wave hits the spawning site, those bass will be in those areas until at least the end of March."

Finding those spawning sites is easy. Hit the canals, and there are plenty of them on this lake.

A major canal maze exists on the east side of the lake in Istokpoga Estates. Additional manmade canal systems are found in the southeast corner in the Sunvale area, and on the northern end where Arbuckle Creek enters the lake. On the wide and windswept waters of Istokpoga, these sheltered canals are prime sheltered spawning habitat and hold bass throughout the late winter and spring.

"One of the best patterns to take a trophy bass this time of year," Alley noted, "is to slow-troll a live shiner about 6 feet under a float right up the middle of those canals. The bass bed on the edges, sometimes in less than a foot of water, and can be easily sight-fished. But the big females get a little skittish that shallow and ease off the shoreline and hold in the deeper waters in the middle of the canal."

Even if a warm winter brings an early spawn, Alley doesn't discount that tactic through the month of March. Many of those big fish are not in any hurry to leave the deeper canals and can linger well after the actual spawn. The same holds true for smaller bass making their way back to their summer homes in the offshore hydrilla.

"Once the bass finish spawning," Alley said, "the bream move in right behind them and spawn around the mouths of the canals. That sets up a perfect feeding situation for bass to rebuild their strength after the spawn. If the fish have moved out of the canals, they haven't gone very far. There will be plenty of them stacked up around the canal mouths."

Alley's approach is simple. Check the canals first. If that fails to produce satisfactory results, he begins prospecting the areas around the canal mouths, paying particular attention to bulrush patches in 3 to 5 feet of water. Areas where cattails are growing in the shallows behind the bulrushes are of special interest.