10-30 Mid-lake schooling bass

[sdfd29]

Blake (SDFD504) and I made it to the lake about 2:30 today. We planned on checking on some of the places that we found schooling bass last year at this time. Our first stop found the bass chasing the shad, actually pushing them out of the water. The surface activity did not last long, but we caught the first fish on a Mann's 1-minus crankbait. The water level was 3-5 feet. Then the fish disappeared for about 1 hour (the sun came out from behind the clouds).

We moved back in the cove and found other active fish. We tried top water with very little success. We started catching the fish on a Silver Buddy knock off that I found at Sportsman's warehouse (0.99$). We were catching the largemouths, white bass and yellow bass by pumping the silver buddy under the bait balls. We also managed to catch several of the threadfin shad, which were about the same size as the silver buddies.

In all we caught 12 largemouths, most 14 + inches with the largest ~2.5 lbs, we also lost several others. We caught 3 or 4 white bass in the 2 to 3 lbs range. The catching would have been better if the wind had not blown so hard for ~1 hour. But for a three hour trip and the first trip in the last two weeks, not a bad afternoon.

 

[drumking]

Good report and a lot of fun for sure.emoThumbsup emoGeezer

 

[MrWiskers]

Glad to hear someone else got some schooling action. We found our schools late in the day and only got to hit them for about 45 minutes before it started to get dark.

 

[DHaun]

Thanks for the report sdfd29! How deep were you fishing that silver buddy lure?

 

[sdfd29]

All of the fish came in less than 5 feet of water, most were in 2 to 3 feet. We did not do any good on the top water bite tonight, which really suprised me.

Early in the afternoon we saw more schooling action, but in the last thirty minutes before dark we went to where the schoolers had been and caught three in three casts ( that were the last cast for the night ). It seems that the fish were on a very subtle drop from 3 to 5 feet. Some dying vegatation was on the bottom along with some brush piles.

 

[Biofisher I]

Thanks for the report. Now that I have Evening free( no more baseball) I'm looking for some schooling action. I have not been on the lake for a long time. Is most of this action taking place in coves next to the river flow? I have to get back in contact with the fish again. Thanks for any help.

 

[sdfd29]

Biofisher,

We fished a cove on the east side of the river, the wind was blowing into the cove and had the shad balled up in the back of the cove. We only tried one spot, but I am sure that most of the areas that had schooling fish earlier in the year still are holding fish. We caught most of our fish after the schooling activity had died down, by fishing under the bait. For some reason the bass ignored the top water baits.