Photo by Ron Sinfelt

May is arguably the best month of the whole year for bass fishing in the Cotton State, and you don't have to go far to find exciting action if you're in the Birmingham area.

Lots of bass have just come off the bed this time of year. They're hungry after the rigors of the spawn and often go on a feeding binge that can be pure magic for anglers.

A few bass will not yet have spawned and you still find bedding fish in May, and those bass can be picked up with sight-fishing techniques. It's one of those months when a whole lot of different types of fishing can be productive.

Four great places to try for those bass in May are within an hour of Birmingham. Those are Logan Martin, Inland, Bankhead and Holt lakes.

Chris Stephenson has spent a lifetime pursuing bass all across the state, but the Birmingham-area lakes are his home waters. He has won an estimated 40 bass tournaments on these impoundments over the years.

Here are his tips on fishing these waters, along with insights from Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries biologists Rob Andress and Jay Haffner.

LOGAN MARTIN LAKE
Logan Martin is a Coosa River reservoir approximately 30 miles east of Birmingham. It is 48 1/2 miles long and covers 15,263 acres.

Both largemouth and spotted bass are present in the lake, and the DWFF reports that both species show above-average growth and are in excellent condition. But the DWFF also calls the Logan Martin spotted bass fishery one of the best in the state.

Rob Andress said the last fish sampling done there in the spring of 2005 gave the District II fisheries office plenty to be excited about. In general, there are good numbers of bass in lots of different size classes.

"In a nutshell, our sampling work has indicated that the bass in Logan Martin are in excellent shape," Andress emphasized.

The biologists found that there were strong year-classes of largemouth bass from the 2003 and 2004 spawns. Those bass are now becoming the size that anglers like to catch.

They found excellent growth rates for all Logan Martin bass compared to other waters in the state.

They also noted strong 2002 and 2003 year-classes of spotted bass.

Andress said that you can look at the fish in Logan Martin and see what good condition they're in.

"They're plump," he noted.