Wolf pack bassin, where's the pigs?

[keithdog]

Ok, a few years ago, shad were introduced into one of my local favorite fishin holes. THAT completely changed the game for summer bass fishing. Where as before, I would concentrate on pitchin, and casting to various forms of cover for bass in this small natural lake, which was primarily a bluegill food based lake, now durring the summer, the bass are roaming in packs attacking balls of shad. Durring this time, very little action takes place in the pads and shallow cover like before. Now, the bass are more open water minded chasing after the shad. Most of the bass caught from these shad chasing packs average around 2-3 pounds with a few here and there around 4 pounds. My question is what becomes of the really large bass at this time when the smaller bass are chasing shad. I read a couple times that often the bigger bass are following the shad, but staying below the smaller bass above, scarffing up wounded shad that float down to them. I don't buy this notion myself. The idea of a large bass running all over the lake chasing these bass packs to play the part of scavenger doesn't feel right to me. I've worked the deeper water below the schools of shad busting bass with rattle traps, deep diving cranks, jigs, and weighted jerkbaits, and never once hooked into any large bass doing so. Now I will say this, I've caught quite a few big bass at this time of year very early in the morning before the bass start busting shad at the surface. But once the sun rises and the shad bite is on, the big bass seem to vanish. Like I said, this is a small 85 acre natural lake. There is no creek beds, or anything like one would find in a reservoir. Mainly flats and deeper areas with lots and lots of vegitation. Come fall when the shad bite starts to wind down, I start taking bigger bass more consistantly again. So I wonder, where are they and what are they doing durring the shad run?