The Minnesota bass fishing opener (the real opener in my book) is a unique opener in that the purpose of the delayed start is to allow the bass to go through the spawn somewhat protected.

And while most seasons many bass are had during the walleye opener and the following two weeks thereafter, for the most part, unless someone is fishing out of season, bedding bass aren’t targeted all the often, and bass openers generally are in a post-spawn pattern.

But spring 2008 has been something of a doozy, locking the jaws of many a fish during the walleye/northern opener, and the delayed spring will have its affect on bass opener as well.

According to Bruce Gilbertson, area fisheries manager at the Department of Natural Resources field office in Spicer, the bass opener definitely will have a different flavor.

“The odds are we will have a vast majority of the largemouth spawning after opener,” he says.

Now, most true bass enthusiasts will foam at the mouth with the chance to get after bass during the spawn, but those same enthusiasts will debate the ethics of fishing bedding bass.

You might be asking yourself what difference it makes whether or not people catch bass during the spawn. Well, first you have to understand a little bit about the spawn.

Depending on who you talk to or where you read about it, bass start getting active when the water temps start to push into the upper 40s and the lower 50s, but the spawning period on northern lakes doesn’t actually take place until water temperatures reach the low 60s.

The male bass are the first to move into the shallow waters when temps rise; these bass are searching for prime bedding locations. Eventually the females will move in, lay eggs, and then the males will guard the beds.

Gilbertson says there is always a concern when the spawn pushes back toward the opener, mostly because he says the males guarding the eggs and eventual fry are a determining factor on whether or not the fry survive (although a good many of male bass will eat some of the fry).

“Even if they aren’t hungry,” he says, “they will strike anything, including lures.”

The fear, he says, is that in the time it takes for an angler to retrieve and unhook the bass, handle it and return the male to the water, bluegill or crappies or other fish may have moved in and consumed a good portion of the fry.

Furthermore, he says experts just don’t know how long it takes for the male bass to go back to the nest, though he says most eventually do.

Fortunately, Gilbertson assures, bass are a very resilient species, and as such, bounce back with even a small population of males and females in a lake.

To bed or not to bed