To me the toughest time of year to fish is the post spawn.  It doesn’t mean that you can’t get fish to eat, but they may be difficult to hook or get hooked up well, land, and find.  Sometimes as anglers we are doing nothing wrong and we can’t seem to have any success.  This was how my entire weekend went.

I believe that the fish in Western Pennsylvania have moved into the post spawn time of  year.  That is not to say that you can’t find a few bass still on beds.  You can and will still find some bedding bass.  However, the majority of the females have left the beds for the males to guard. 

Saturday, I headed up to Wilhelm with my dad trying to find some of the true giant largemouth bass that swim those waters.  Unfortunately, the fish were in post spawn meaning that they were going to be very inactive.  We landed about 8 bass, but nothing was over 3lbs.  I was able to hook up with 2 good fish that came off.  Both fish ate the jig to the point where they were swimming with it.  I nailed them with a good hook set and both fish (one around 4lbs and the other pushing 6lbs) managed to shake the hook on the way in. 

Sunday my wife and myself met my parents at Shenago Lake for a picnic and some fishing.   The day went very much like Wilhelm the day before.  I managed to catch 9 bass, but only one smallmouth would keep and it was the first fish I caught.  I hooked up with 9 more bass that came off, and missed about 5 fish to short strikes. 

Fishing the post spawn can be very frustrating, but once you get on the fish you can catch alot of them in one area.