Article on big bass behavior

[BearFisher10]

4 minutes ago, Old plug said:

Yep dtrs5kors there is another old saying " bass are where you find then ". My feelings are some of these people do not want anything to do with the fishing end. They just want to be told what ,when ,where and how and go do the catching. There is somehing wrong with that. I would not consider myself successful  or be proud of myself if I was told everything.

I've got a buddy who will read anything and everything, he's a marketers dream always buying stuff because he thinks it'll help him. I always try to explain to him that most of the stuff he reads and buys won't work like magic and doesn't work the same way as compared to other lakes because they're not highland reserviors. I just let his "information" go in one ear and out the other now and try not to argue about things. There's a lot of people like that I believe and it takes more than reading articles on bassmaster.com and wired2fish to be productive on the water. 

[merc1997 Bo]

2 hours ago, dtrs5kprs said:

Type of lake makes a huge difference. 

There is the old saw about "a bass is a bass" all over the country. Not sure it really applies to highland reservoir largemouth. MLF starts this afternoon, filmed at Dale Hollow. Will be interesting to see how many blacks are caught during daytime competition there.

there is actually much truth to the fact that a bass is a bass all over the country.  the same basic rules apply, but one has to be smart enough to learn how to adapt the rules to the body of water you are fishing.

bo

[Mitch f]

On January 1, 2016 at 11:16 AM, Fish24/7 said:

 thx, Quillback

If they put  transmitters in biggins at TR and BS and followed them after the spawn they'd  have another new book to write, and I'd buy that one.

I think that technology will be affordable to the masses soon....and we can do our own studies!

[Jerry Rapp]

28 minutes ago, Mitch f said:

I think that technology will be affordable to the masses soon....and we can do our own studies!

spot on Mitch.  Just think back 20 years. 1996.  The internet was just starting, who could get the fastest dial up connection was the craze, computers still had floppy disks for storage.  And every technology just keeps improving. 

It will blow Wrench's mind, but when we all start tracking fish and writing about them.  I can hear it now.  Arm chair Biologists!

 

[fishinwrench]

I've done some hillbilly tracking studies (balloons, safety pins, and 4# line) on schools of white bass before.   I learned some cool stuff that has helped me load the boat on several occasions.  

[Gavin]

Turned a few into Judas fish! Lol. Probably better than fancy electronics.

[fishinwrench]

I had 3 pinned on a 4-6' flat and all of a sudden one took off by himself (well he wasn't by himself but you know what I mean), he went way out across the flat at a steady speed and then stopped and stayed in an area about 20 yards square the rest of the afternoon while the rest of the original school stayed put where they were BUT STOPPED BITING.  That taught me that the school doesn't always stay together, they split up into smaller packs that go haunt other areas. They never did go join back up with the original school. 

The area where the deserters stopped and stayed turned out to be a hard bottom area amid acres of soft muddy bottoms. So now I don't spend any time at all fishing over soft soggy bottoms on the shallow flats.  I'll stick my rod down and if it is hard/rocky I'll fish it, if it's soft/silty I'll keep moving.  

The rogue school, after they got settled into the new spot, kept biting clear until dark but the original school stayed shut down and I couldn't get them to bite anything.  So when you're on a hot school of Whites and the action slows it's a safe bet that part of the school (the remaining active ones) wandered off elsewhere to resume their feeding.  The ones that stay put around the piece of structure are probably done gorging for the day.  If you ever pull up on a spot and catch ONE white bass you can bet there are more there, they just aren't gonna chase or bite.  Somewhere within a 1/2 mile of there is probably another group that WILL bite. 

I really wanted to leave them all pinned overnite and see where they ended up the next day... but I didn't wanna mark them for someone else, so I chased them down and pulled them back up.  

[snagged in outlet 3]

That's pretty cool!

[Sam]

fishinwrench, that's real interesting info about the whites.  Thanks for posting it!

We lived on the west coast for awhile and I did a lot of ocean fishing then.  White bass, in my opinion, behave more like some salt water fish - they run in schools, move around a lot, go on "feeding frenzies" and then often turn off all at once.  That's just like fishing the Pacific coast for some of the active species - chasing seagulls and surface boils where fish and birds are tearing into anchovies.  Fun!

My old fishing partner could never understand that white bass don't 'scope well when they're up on flats - "Nope, nothing here!".  I always figured that as fast and active as white bass are, they aren't going to hold still and let a boat go right over them in shallow water - by the time the transducer on the back of the boat goes over where they were, they've already moved!

[mojorig]

I am one of those "worth-less" biologist but I don't want Florida Largemouth Bass stocked in the Ozarks. It would kill the great winter bite. Florida largemouth bass are very moody and fincky when it comes to weather.