This is how you start a new year of fishing!
There is nothing quite like that first fishing trip of the year. After spending much of the winter inside, it's good to get outside and wet a line once again. The trip gets even better when the first fish of the year is a pre-spawn pot-bellied chunk like this largemouth caught by YouTuber Bama Bass.
The fish on this small lake are clearly in a feeding mode to prepare for the spawn, as is evidenced by the fish's bulging belly that appears to have a tilapia or full-sized bluegill in it!
Along the way they catch a few other nice fish and give some solid early season fishing tips that will help you boat some lunkers this spring.
Now that was a chunky fish. Who wouldn't want to start off the year with a nearly 8-pounder? It's not everyday that one gets to catch a largemouth that is that fat. This fish were clearly prepping for the spawning season and are just waiting for the waters to get warm enough. In the meantime, they'll feed like crazy because bass don't eat during the spawn period. The strikes you get while spawning are defensive ones.
Z-Man fishing introduced the Jackhammer Stealthblade chatterbait last August, so this spring will be the first season anglers get to use it during the prime bass fishing months. Based on what we saw here, it looks like this lure is already a winner. Z-Man fishing partnered with pro angler Brett Hite and Japanese lure maker EverGreen International on the design.
The underwater shots and the sound of this new chatterbait are fantastic and will likely get a few new looks from fish that already see a ton of these lures every spring. They made a great point in this video about why chatterbaits are so popular and it's simply because they are an awesome search bait. Especially when the bass are actively feeding like we saw here. We don't know about you, but it makes us want to hit the water as soon as possible!
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
NEXT: PETA IS NOW GOING AFTER FISHERMEN
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