By Andrew Ragas With ice fishing coming to a close, there’s no better time to begin preparing for this year’s open water season, and evaluating bass fishing expectations. As a new season approaches, I often analyze my performance from the previous year, and review techniques and strategies that worked and didn’t work, and build upon them with the objectives they may be successful for me again in this upcoming season. There are no shortcuts to consistently catching quality bass, but there are certain strategies and methods you can implement to improve your success. Here are my best tips for catching more and bigger bass this year. Give consideration to each, and you could have a better season than you’ve had in a long time.   Sunny Delight One common bass fishing misconception is how fish avoid the sunlight as much as possible. It could be true for largemouth bass at times, but smallmouths on the other hand beg to differ. Majority of my good days of smallmouth fishing take place on sunny days. Sunlight stimulates smallmouth activity and drives their feeding patterns. Because they are visual feeders, smallmouths are most responsive in such conditions year roun