Also known as Spot, Spotted, Kentucky Bass, Alabama Spotted Bass, Coosa Bass (regional). Bait, technique, tide windows, and where the bite is on right now.
Spotted bass hybridise readily with smallmouth and largemouth bass — a fact that has wrecked smallmouth populations in many US lakes where spots were stocked unwisely. The pure-strain spotted bass can be identified by a tongue patch of small teeth, present on spots but absent on largemouth. Tournament anglers in the south chase spots specifically because they school deep and bite reliably on jerkbaits in 9–12 m.
Hero spots in our coverage where Spotted Bass is in season for May. Click through for the live forecast.
Out of season across our covered spots in May. Check back in August.
Spotted bass live deeper and clearer than largemouth, and they school heavily on offshore structure — they're the bass species where electronics (LiveScope, Garmin Panoptix) genuinely matter. Tournament method: idle main-lake points, humps, and standing timber on Lake Lanier, Smith Lake, Pine Flat, Bullards Bar, Lake Martin watching for suspended bait and bass marks; drop-shot or spybait directly onto the marks. Spawn (water 60–68°F south, varies): sight-fish gravel points and pea-gravel banks in 5–15 ft. Post-spawn through summer: spots suspend over deep timber and channel swings in 20–50 ft in clear southern reservoirs — drop-shot, Damiki rig, or scrounger-head minnow vertically. Fall: chase schooling spots crashing shad on the surface; topwater (Sammy 105, Whopper Plopper 90) over schools is heart-stopping.
Pre-spawn (water 55–62°F, late winter–spring in the south) is a strong trophy window — staging spots stack on main-lake points and ditches. Spawn (62–68°F) on gravel and pea-gravel banks. Post-spawn (68–78°F): the suspended-offshore pattern starts and dominates summer — spots can be hard to find but easy to catch once located on electronics. Fall (water 75°F dropping to 60°F): the famous "schooling" topwater bite on shad-rich southern reservoirs like Lake Lanier and Smith Lake produces all-day surface action. Winter (water 45–55°F): clear deep-water finesse — drop-shot, jerkbait, spybait all produce for 6 lb+ trophies in California and the deep south.
Spotted bass are moderately moon-influenced for spawning timing — full moons in March–April south, April–May further north. Dark-of-the-moon nights in summer can produce surface-schooling activity on shad. Pre-frontal pressure drops outperform any moon phase as an active-feeding trigger.
Generally less restrictive than largemouth — spotted bass have invaded northern California black-bass waters where they're considered an invasive threat to native largemouth and smallmouth. California: no statewide minimum on spotted bass in most CA waters (they're considered a pest in some lakes — verify CDFW). Georgia / Alabama: 12" minimum, 10 fish daily on most lakes, no slot limits. Tennessee: 12" minimum, 5 fish. Some southern reservoirs (Lake Martin AL) have produced 8 lb+ spotted bass that hold IGFA or unofficial records. Verify state wildlife agency. Spotted bass culture is heavily tournament-driven — almost universal C&R, even in waters with generous limits.
From our training corpus of ~1.1M angler-logged catches across 14 regions. Last refreshed 2026-05-18.
Olli-Mikael Vaittinen has fished his whole life. Fifteen years of fly fishing, guiding seasons on Norway's Lakselva — his favourite Atlantic salmon river — and a blue marlin landed in Vava'u, Tonga. Founder of Fishare — the app that puts the data behind the decisions every angler makes on the water.
Fishare tracks your home spots and pings you when the next 3-hour peak window opens. Log catches and blanks to teach the model your local patterns. Free forever for everyone who joins now.
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