As far a plastics go, most anglers fish for Spots with 4 to 6 inch plastic worms or lizzards. Preferred fishing areas including points extending into the main lake or in creeks on points near the main lake, which have some of the preferred habitat mentioned below. Like their cousin the largemouth Bass, Spots associate closely with bottom structure, preferring rock, rubble, gravel and sand. Also, they are commonly found near cover which they use for ambushing their prey. Cover usually consists of overhanging banks, submerged boulders, submerged stumps and tree roots, and piles of woody debris.
Spotted bass tend to be found in areas with more current than largemouth bass.
However, they usually inhabit areas that are too warm, turbid, and sluggish for smallmouth bass. In Alabama the yellow perch should spawn in the February or March when water temperatures reach 51 F. Yellow perch are random spawners, whose spawning success is highly variable and is dependent on favorable environmental conditions. Yellow perch spawn in the spring over a variety of depths and habitat types ranging from submerged tree limbs, sticks, and vegetation, to shallow gravel bars and reefs, to sandy vegetated embayments, to hard mud bottoms out to depths of 40 feet. Yellow perch do not construct nests, nor do they guard their eggs and their young. Eggs are contained within a gelatinous ribbon.