To help unlock the Florida puzzle, and help you catch more fish, Berkley and Spiderwire pro Bobby Lane – one of the very best Florida sticks in the sport today – offers his advice on how to adjust to Florida's early spawn and better your tournament finishes.

Bedding Activity

"When we fished the Okeechobee FLW Tour in January 2005, I was in 2nd or 3rd after the first day," Lane said. "Every guy I talked to was flipping mats to catch pre-spawn fish. But I was actually catching fish off beds. The fish start to spawn here when the water temp is around 62 to 66, and 68 is the magic number. But a lot of fish will come up early.

"It's early November right now and we're already starting to get some cold fronts, and I was just at Okeechobee this week and saw some beds. Kissimmee has some beds too. I'm not saying you could win a tournament on them, but you can find a good kicker or good fish this early in the year sitting right there on a bed."

Lane also advises that if you do spot an early bed, but don't see a fish, it might have simply pulled off due to a cold front. As well, multiple fish will move through and use that same bed, so keep checking it every day, even if you take fish off it.

Also, keep in mind that these ultra-early fish are most likely in the 3- to 6-pound class, which is the right class of fish to cash a check or even win. Later, when the big waves appear in January, you might need 25 to 30 pounds to win, but not now, so adjust your expectations.

Right Kind of Green

There are certain clues you can use this time of year to help zero in on spawning activity, and the biggest ones concern vegetation.

Photo: BassFan To find early bedding activity, Lane scouts likely areas and hones in on the right vegetation.

"You're looking for a hard bottom, but not real clear and sandy. It can have a little bit of mud on the bottom, like back in the canals or in protected areas off the main lake. And you should look for cover like lily pads, cattails, a good group of pencil reeds or arrowhead, which they also call mother-in-law tongue. The lily-pad roots act like a hard bottom and the fish will spawn on them. And arrowheads generally grow on a hard bottom.

"If you can find arrowheads, you're almost guaranteed to find key fish. That's not a very secret deal, but it's still important. Also, down here, you'll see six fish on a bed, so you can catch one, come back later and catch another and really put a good stringer together off two or three beds."

Tackle Tips

For fishing this time of year in Florida – whether in bedding areas, or pre-spawn areas slightly off the beds – Lane relies primarily on a Berkley Power worm. Also, if the fish are off the beds, he likes to throw a frog on 50-pound Spiderwire Ultracast. If he gets some good bites on the frog, he'll slow down and search the area for bedding activity.

Final Tip

Lane's last piece of advice is to not commit to what you've got.

"When you get a north wind and cold front, your best bet is to go to a north bank or protected pocket," he said. "You need to have a backup area that's going to produce if the water gets muddy. You might only be able to catch 8 to 10 pounds, but fishing will be tough enough that it'll help you survive. Sometimes you just need to pack up and head to something totally new where you can try to run the pattern that had been catching fish."

Notable

> Lane and his wife just had their third child – a baby girl named Amberly Joan Lane. He's superstitious about baby weights and his fishing. "She weighed 6 pounds even," he said. "That's the perfect number to shoot for for next year's catch. You don't want them too big or too small. She's a beautiful baby."