Bass – Schooling fish – A few Observations and Questions.

This past weekend it seems like the bass are really starting to school up in much smaller locations. Prior I was mostly finding them scattered out all along a weedline or all over a hump. Once they school like this its a real Love / Hate thing. I love that once located you can catch lots of fish rather fast. I hate that you often go much longer searching for and finding fish. What are all you thoughts on When, Why and where bass start to school up in larger #’s.

I find its normally mid to late July each year that they really start to group up in larger schools ( 5+ fish in a rather small spot ) They normally stay this way until they start the change to the Fall pattern. For me this is normally Early to Mid. Sept.

I believe the reason they school up in larger #’s is to work together to hunt and eat. I often locate some of these school by watching for are where the fish push the bait to the surface and explode on them.

Another interesting thing is they often seem to school by size. Yesterday we located 3 rather large schools of fish. The 1st school all seemed to be in the 14-16″ range. The 2nd were all under 13″ and the 3rd was a school of all nice BIG fish ( 18’+ ) All the fish seemed to be REALLY feeding well. Really BIG belly’s on them.

As far as the where – I often find the largest schools on the points of weeklines or on inside turns. On the humps its most often the areas with the hardest bottom.

I am curious to see your thoughts.

I believe they school up by size. I think the same thing occurs with other schooling fish too like walleyes, crappies, etc. You generally will not catch a 14 inch walleye mixed in with a bunch of 28 inchers because most predatory fish out there are cannibalistic – they eat each other. So yes, when you get into a school of 15 inch bass, you’ll likely run into more of similar size.

As for schooling up to work together and hunt, I doubt it. Fish are not problem solvers. They don’t have coordinated attack patterns like wolves, dolphins, or velociraptors do. I think they school up in a specific area simply because there is a food source there and/or there’s cover from other predators there. This time of year, cooler water or shade is also very important because it provides relief from the sweltering sun/heat.

I was in charge of a large freshwater aquarium many years ago and I often just observed their behavior when cleaning the glass. The bass were by far the most social fish in the tanks – especially largemouth.

gimruis wrote:

As for schooling up to work together and hunt, I doubt it. Fish are not problem solvers. They don’t have coordinated attack patterns like wolves, dolphins, or velociraptors do. I think they school up in a specific area simply because there is a food source there and/or there’s cover from other predators there. This time of year, cooler water or shade is also very important because it provides relief from the sweltering sun/heat.

I am trying to figure out what different now and say 2 weeks ago. As to the food source I guess it may be possible that they to are all now grouping up together and thus why the bass are as well. As far as cover from Predators I cant seem to find a difference. Just a change from fish scattered along a weedline and now grouping together in a smaller portion of the weedline. Water temps may be a factor because it does seem to start about the same time as the water temps seem to peak each year.

Ok………i’ll be the first……… someone who actually tries and fishes for bass!!!!!!!

glenn57 wrote:

Ok………i’ll be the first……… someone who actually tries and fishes for bass!!!!!!!

Hey don’t pick on your mom

LOL.

Charles wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>glenn57 wrote:</div>
Ok………i’ll be the first……… someone who actually tries and fishes for bass!!!!!!!

Hey don’t pick on your mom

LOL.

my mom has the same opnion of bass!!!!

I go to the store for food fish for fun-bass sure more fun than that long perch you want.
If you think bass are easy to catch you should unseat KVD who made 6 mil. since 2017 NOT counting endorsements. Go for it!

Believe it or not it could be alot worse glenn,thumper could have used the W word.I think his mom would disown him then.

I don’t know why they do it but it happens every year and seems to be right when the water is reaching it’s peak water temp. I love it. Sure it takes a little more time to find them but when you do it’s bananas. Fished for an hour and half on a new lake yesterday before I caught one, but then I found the school and caught 15 in the next hour, all from the same spot. Anywhere from 1-4 lbs. Also, the crappie seem to school up in the same areas it seems.

tim hurley wrote:

I go to the store for food fish for fun-bass sure more fun than that long perch you want.
If you think bass are easy to catch you should unseat KVD who made 6 mil. since 2017 NOT counting endorsements. Go for it!

lighten up Francis, just giving thumper a little grief. Bug I still won’t fish for bass.

Sometimes it’s easier to find bait that’s schooled up, then fish the edges of the bait ball to find where the predators are feeding. Sometimes I think the predators just happen to be hanging out at the ambush locations because their good ambush points more so than a friendly get together. They may also cluster together for O2, because that’s where the O2 is.

Schooling fish is my favorite part about bass fishing. It sure is fun to find the spot and catch multiple fish cast after cast. On Saturday I caught six fish, in six casts, all 16-17″ from a spot no bigger than a pool table.
I like to switch it up to see how many different baits I can get bit on. Sometimes they’ll eat everything you throw at them and other times they’re more picky.
I think it’s a combination of factors that make them school up. They are definitely feeding together, but I doubt it’s overly organized. They’re just fish. Something about that spot is prime and everyone is trying to take advantage. (Think cheapest gas in town) For fish it’s basically always about food, water temperature and oxygen levels.
I find myself searching for a school in open water/ structure areas or deep weedlines often times even when I know that I may be better off shallower. Call me crazy but I’d trade five frog fish for a school of five in five consecutive casts. I enjoy the searching it takes and the reward when it works out.

What is everybody’s favorite bait or presentation to “clean house” on a school once they’ve been located? For me more often than not I’ll find the fish with a bite on a jig or crank. I’ll usually throw that until I don’t get bit. If I make a cast to the spot and don’t get bit, I usually grab the drop shot or Texas rigged worm and try to get a couple more.

fishthumper wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>gimruis wrote:</div>
As for schooling up to work together and hunt, I doubt it. Fish are not problem solvers. They don’t have coordinated attack patterns like wolves, dolphins, or velociraptors do. I think they school up in a specific area simply because there is a food source there and/or there’s cover from other predators there. This time of year, cooler water or shade is also very important because it provides relief from the sweltering sun/heat.

I am trying to figure out what different now and say 2 weeks ago. As to the food source I guess it may be possible that they to are all now grouping up together and thus why the bass are as well. As far as cover from Predators I cant seem to find a difference. Just a change from fish scattered along a weedline and now grouping together in a smaller portion of the weedline. Water temps may be a factor because it does seem to start about the same time as the water temps seem to peak each year.

Perhaps the level of the thermocline. The deeper it goes the less available cover becomes, so fish have to share the spot on the spot.

chuck100 wrote:

Believe it or not it could be alot worse glenn,thumper could have used the W word.I think his mom would disown him then.

grubson wrote:

What is everybody’s favorite bait or presentation to “clean house” on a school once they’ve been located? For me more often than not I’ll find the fish with a bite on a jig or crank. I’ll usually throw that until I don’t get bit. If I make a cast to the spot and don’t get bit, I usually grab the drop shot or Texas rigged worm and try to get a couple more.

I generally encounter this too. When I get a couple of fish in a general area on a faster/moving lure presentation, I try to work the area more thoroughly with a slower/finesse presentation. It is usually effective. However, this season it is not. I cannot get bit regularly on a slower plastic presentation, it has to be a more aggressive approach. Which is very odd because when the bite slows down in the heat of summer I usually have far more success with the plastics.

When I was in high school my sister in laws dad took me fishing to a lake in Elk River where he found bass 1.5-2#s all schooled up near shore. We waded for them and every cast produced strikes or a fish. I actually got a little bored so I started throwing the most gimmicky or low confidence lures I had.

Anyway, he kept some plump bass to bring home to eat. When we cut them open we realized why they were schooled up. They were gorging on 1′ bullhead babies. Their bellies were all full of them.

I personally think they were coordinating in a way. They had all these bullheads trapped on a small patch of weeds on a point and I assume were corralling them there.

grubson wrote:

What is everybody’s favorite bait or presentation to “clean house” on a school once they’ve been located? For me more often than not I’ll find the fish with a bite on a jig or crank. I’ll usually throw that until I don’t get bit. If I make a cast to the spot and don’t get bit, I usually grab the drop shot or Texas rigged worm and try to get a couple more.

For me if the fish seem to be over the top of the cover – Its a Jigworm. If they are down into the cover – Its a Texas rigged worm. If they are in open water or well away from the cover edge – Its a dropshot.

The school of really nice bass we found the other day clearly wanted the Jigworm. My fishing buddy boated 6-7 fish on a jigworm while I only boated 1 on a texas rig. As soon as I switched to a jig worm it was Game on for me as well.

Another new thing I’m having success on this year is fishing a stickworm in place of a standard 7″ powerworm on the jigworm setup. I use to always think that the action and vibration of tail on the powerworm was the key. These days I find that a straight tail often out fishes the ribbon tail.

fishthumper wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>grubson

Another new thing I’m having success on this year is fishing a stickworm in place of a standard 7″ powerworm on the jigworm setup. I use to always think that the action and vibration of tail on the powerworm was the key. These days I find that a straight tail often out fishes the ribbon tail.

I usually go with a straight tail on a jig worm (the big TRD is my favorite) and a curly tail on my Texas rig. A 4″ power worm in motor oil is another favorite of mine for a jig worm. Lately the curly tail has been the most productive for me.

I have caught 90% of schooled bass (2 over 5#) wacky worm with barbless hook 1/16 oz spit shot. I always crush the barb when wacky rigging as it is much easier popping hook out especially when going through gills to reverse a deep hook. I find you very seldom lose a fish and it is much easier on the fish. Keep wanting to try other techniques, but it is hard to beat wacky when schooled. The rest have been on a long shaft 1/4 oz green firetiger fireball jighead with a Kalins SIZMIC Shad in Pearl. The key to finding schools is finding the greenest weeds. Jighead is often my search method as it collects weeds and I can examine quality.

They’re in their summer patterns and bunched up. They quickly went deep when the water sky-rocketed into the mid-80s. The dock and slop bite – my favorite way to fish – completely disappeared for me during that heat wave.

To search this time of year when it’s unlikely the largemouth are flying into the boat, I’ll often use a 1/8-1/4oz Ned rig or jig worm to poke around along the edges of the thickest deep weeds I can find that have deeper water nearby. These baits generate reaction strikes when you pop them free of weed tops. Sometimes snap-jigging a 3/8-1/2oz jig-and-craw works well as a search bait for fairly passive bass and can still cover water. Same with the 3/8oz 4″ paddletail swimbait.

If I luck out and they’re aggressive and willing to chase, 1/2-1oz 4-5″ paddletail swimbaits, deep cranking, snap-jigging lipless cranks, heavy bladed jigs, or a 3/4oz spinnerbait will get down there deep and generate strikes. The big spinnerbaits and heavy swimbaits are often the first baits I toss. The purpose of these baits are to search for the schools. One or two bites will give the whole school away when they’re bunched up, and then you can try progressively slower, smaller, and more subtle lures to target the less aggressive fish.

To clean house, often of the less aggressive ones that wouldn’t hit the search lures, a 5″ wacky rigged GYBC Senko or finesse jig-and-craw can work really well.

grubson wrote:

I usually go with a straight tail on a jig worm (the big TRD is my favorite) and a curly tail on my Texas rig. A 4″ power worm in motor oil is another favorite of mine for a jig worm. Lately the curly tail has been the most productive for me.

Its funny you should say 4″ powerworm in motor oil. My fishing partner ALWAYS fishes a 4″ powerworm on his Jigworm. He tends to like the colors with the bright colored tails. I have almost always fished the 7″ powerworm in the motoroil color on my Jigworm setup.

Find the deep weed edge and you will find the bass. I search for them with deep diving cranks and when I start getting bit I switch over to more finesse techniques and clean house. Gimruis I agree with you and say they are still hitting moving baits hard. For the first time ever my neko rig got outfished by a 5XD crank on Sunday.

I throw a jig, followed by a jig and if that fails I throw a jig.

All my bigger ones today came on a crank (good ol’ balsa fat rap) Plastics only got small stuff.

The “why” is very simple. Watch your electronics closely and you will see bait balls of young of the year panfish, suckers, and so on. I’ve chased this summer pattern for over 30 years. Figure out where the bait will be, and you’ll have bass near by