Key Fishing Patterns in March

The best situation is to have some sort of backwater area right below the dam. One of the spots I used to fish had a marshy bay about a block below the dam. The pike moved in there as soon as the ice was gone, which varied from as early as mid-March to as late as early April.

Another spot had a dead-end ditch about a block long and 60 feet wide that entered the river just below the dam. The pike used that as soon as the ice left. Deadbait below a bobber was the best presentation in these instances, until the weather warmed for a couple of weeks and most of the fish had spawned.

Pike stay in the tailwater to feed after they spawn, often moving into some of the faster-water spots right below the dam. Look for eddies. Fish might be in any big slackwater spot within a mile of the dam. It’s worth checking downriver. There are so many small dams across the country that it’s hard to describe every situation that might arise. Explore.

Once pike leave a backwater for faster water, fish with lures instead of bait. A jig tipped with a softbait is a top option to bounce along the bottom. In clear waters, crankbaits like the Countdown Rapala and Husky Jerk are good options. Spoons work too, especially fished in lift-drop fashion along the bottom instead of on a straight retrieve, although that works too.

Tube Areas

These are obvious areas with current entering lakes, or necked-down areas between lakes or lake areas. Again, moving water attracts pike. Some of the best of these are where small rivers enter bays on a lake. It’s a sort of reverse pattern to the ice fishing that centers farther out in the lake.

In this case, the running water creates an open-water pocket at the mouth of the river. If there’s enough depth (3 or 4 feet is usually enough) and something structurally attractive like weeds or wood or depth changes, it’s likely to gather some fish. Spots like this often draw fish for at least a month, first before the ice is out and then for a period after ice-out when the fish have spawned but stay in the area to feed. These are attractive areas for forage fish and thus for pike.

Lots of lakes and portions of some reservoirs also are connected by culverts or bridged narrows areas to marshes or other lakes. These can be hotspots. At times pike hold for just a bit before moving through the tube area to spawn in the marsh; once they spawn they also hold for a bit on their way out. A steady procession of forage moves through these areas on its way into the marsh to spawn, in the case of perch and bullheads, and to feed, in the case of many minnow species.

Here again, deadbait often works best early on, and lures become more productive as the open-water season progresses.

Lake, Reservoir, and River Backwaters

These are classic situations we’ve written a lot about over the years. Pike seek the warmest water they can find. If they can’t get into a marsh by exiting a lake via a necked-down area or by running up a river, they move into a marsh immediately connected to a lake or river, or into cuts off a main portion of a reservoir.