Photo by Russell Tinsley.

Planning to spend valuable vacation days on a fishing trip? Where should you go, and when? It’;s an important decision; if your boss is like mine, he’;s not going to give you a second chance if you get skunked.

The “when” part is easy: March is the best month for fishing as the bass are either staging at pre-spawn locations or they are in the shallows spawning.

Our state has many great fishing destinations for largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass, so that part may be a bit more difficult. Typically, fisheries move through cycles so not every lake sizzles at the same time. To help with your decision, Alabama Game & Fish talked with anglers and biologists to discover some of the hotspots for this spring.

These are not the only places to fish, but they are sure to provide great adventures.

ALICEVILLE LAKE
LARGEMOUTHS
Aliceville Lake is like the beautiful stepdaughter in the fairy tale that works hard, receives little credit and is rarely invited to the ball. The lake has ideal habitat for largemouth bass and produces heavy limits of fish for tournament anglers, but many of these fish are not counted in Alabama’;s annual Bass Anglers Information Team report. That’;s because they are weighed in Mississippi.

Aliceville is the first reservoir in Alabama on the Tombigbee River as it enters the state. From the Stennis Lock and Dam, which is located in Columbus, Miss., the lake has a river-run character until it reaches Hairston Bend Cut-Off, a distance of 15 miles. At that point, the reservoir reaches beyond its banks to create expansive grass flats with an abundance of wood cover, but is still in the Magnolia State. Aliceville then meanders for another 13 miles before reaching the lock and dam at Pickensville. But, only about half that distance is on the Alabama side of the border. In total, the lake covers 8,300 acres.

Nearly 10 years have passed since an outbreak of largemouth bass virus swept through the state. In addition to killing big fish, it slows the growth of infected smaller fish. According to Jerry Moss, District III fisheries supervisor for the Alabama Division of Freshwater Fisheries, the virus hit Aliceville hard. Fortunately, the fishery has recovered and is now ranked as one of the top five lakes in overall quality in the B.A.I.T.

From a competitive angler’;s perspective, winning weights are back to what they were before the virus.

“We won a tournament just before the largemouth virus hit with a seven-fish limit that weighed 32 pounds,” reported successful tournament angler Shan Schoenrock of Aliceville. “Last spring we had another seven-fish limit that weighed 32 pounds. Aliceville has some big fish, and they are getting bigger.