Here we are getting close to the end of another month and two good things have come from it.

No. 1 is tax day is now behind us, being April 15.

No. 2 is we are at another full moon, and this full moon has warm enough weather to see some bedding activity from the panfish here on Lake Seminole. I don’t feel that this will be the first big bedding of the year, though I hope I am wrong.

During the middle of the month we had a new moon, dark nights. Many times shellcracker will bed on this particular moon. A few folks declared they found some small beds, but most of the fishermen that were out there hoping to find a bed said that the fish were in a gathering mood rather than in a bedding mood. Gathering is good as you will have concentrations of fish in a given area and that in itself makes them easier to catch. And catch them the fishermen did. I saw no boat loads of fish, but it seems that everyone did catch fish, more than enough to share. It seems that the folks that caught the fewest fish also caught the larger fish. If a boat had 10 or less shellcracker they were big ones. Big ones that had one or two reaching up toward the 2-pound class. If you fillet a 2-pound shellcracker, about two fish will make a meal for the average family.

What is bothering me about this full moon being a good one is the water may not be warm enough everywhere for the fish to bed with abandon. If not this full moon surely about every moon during the month of May. May is usually a big month for the bass fisherman as well and for the panfisherman because they will be roving around in schools looking for a lot to eat in order to gain some weight back that they lost during their bedding season.

A point off a grass bed is usually one fine spot to try and catch a bass.

The Cannon hole used to be such a place. Rather than get off from the grass and fish toward it, at times I would position my boat up on the grass and cast a worm toward deeper water and bring it back to the edge of the deeper grass. Always caught fish and many times got the larger bass that were hanging back toward the deeper water, only because the bait came through their area first.

For the most part, the first of May will not see the panfishermen and bass fishermen fishing the same waters.

The bass will be a little deeper after topwater time than the bream and shellcracker will be. Of course, you will find errant bass as well as bream and shellcracker that are not where they should be.

I just hope we are where we should be when they start to really bite.

There seems to be plenty of baits to fish with available locally, both of the artificial and live variety.

Beetle spins and Renosky KeyStone Jigs can do their share of catching when it comes to bream and may just get a bass if you are really good at landing fish on an ultra-light outfit.

A bass might just break the 4- or 6-pound line you are using, but then one of the 2- or 3-pound panfish might just break your line also. Wouldn’t you just about cry to lose a 3-pound shellcracker. But knowing there is one there will make you almost sure that if a 3-pound panfish is in Lake Seminole, then so is a 4- or 5-pound panfish. Well maybe not a five.

Maybe the water will be warm enough to hatch out some willow flies or May flies as they are also called. The water temperature has to be just right for this first hatch and then it will be warm enough for them to hatch until the end of the summer.

Once things get started, I think everything will be OK. With the extended winter season it has just been slow getting things started.