Bass Packs

[HarveysMinnow]

Allow me to start off with a question and then I’ll tell a brief story related to the question:

Have any of you ever observed a group of Bass (a pack? a school?) foraging for food together?

Years ago, my uncle’s favorite way to fish for Bass was to use live minnows. In reality, his minnows were juvenile bream, which he or I would catch and dump into a bucket of water. He would then select one and hook it through the tail on a large hook, probably a 4/0 or larger. (Since he owned the pond and PETA did not yet exist, nobody gave him any lip about this technique.)

This was also about the time when polarized sunglasses first hit the shelves in affordable form, and I had purchased a cheap pair. The spot where my uncle was fishing on this particular day was adjacent to a high bank, which began a few feet from the water’s edge and rose steeply to maybe ten feet above the place where my uncle was standing. The water was relatively clear but slightly stained. From atop this embankment I found that I could see several feet down into the water, with the polarized glasses. What I observed that day, I found astonishing.

My uncle cast his minnow out into the pond, with no float (bobber) of any sort. While the minnow swam around in a tight circle, fighting the weight of the hook, several medium sized Bass appeared and soon formed a circle around the struggling minnow. Suddenly, one of them darted in, grabbed the minnow and rapidly swam out of sight. My uncle could tell from the way his line moved that he had a fish on. He allowed it to run into the deeper water until it stopped. According to Unk, this was when the Bass paused to turn the minnow around so he could swallow it headfirst. As soon as it started off again, WHAM!, my uncle set the hook.

After he landed this Bass, Unk put it on a stringer, and began anew with another minnow. It was the same behavior pattern over again – the pack of Bass surrounded the minnow, and another one soon grabbed it and ran. This must have happened at least five or six times. All the bass he caught that day were in the 14 – 18 inch range, not lunkers by any stretch, but all keepers.

To me, this seemed strikingly similar to a pack of wolves or other predators that hunt together. If any of you have seen similar behavior, I would like to read your versions of this. Thanks.

[carolina-rig-01]

That is a cool story!

Not sure if this is what you are talking about or not. But on Table Rock vertical jigging is a big player in catching our suspended fish (as it is on hundreds of other lakes). When you find a school of fish what can happen is just amazing. You might just see one line on the graph, and it's not an arch. Rather it's just a solid horizontal line because the fish isn't moving and if the boat is sitting still the fish stays in the cone of the transducer which leaves a straight line. Anyways, if you have your gaph dialed in where you can see your spoon and drop it down by the line and jig it you can see the fish come up and eat the spoon (this works well with drop shots too of course). Often times if you get that fish to bite the graph will light up like the 4th of July with lines darting all over the place. These are fish in the school that were on the bottom and you never knew they were there, but that is just where it starts getting exciting. As you get the fish up towards the surface and can see it in the water (lets say 5 feet deep for example but can be deeper as this water is gin clear) you may notice several other fish following the hooked fish to the surface trying to steal the spoon out of its mouth. It's not uncommon for these fish to be Smallmouth in the 3lb + range and it's just a crazy thing to see that many big fish fighting of your bait. A lot of guys have went to running the main line through the eye of a red treble hook before tying on the spoon so they can often times catch one of these fish that are trying to steal the spoon out of the mouth of the hooked fish. There are several times when these guys will catch 2 big smallies at the same time. If you have 2 partners in a tournament with a 5 fish limit both doing this and they find the right school and the right conditions they can get a limit in a hurry.

[bassinbob]

Very good story. I've never seen that before but know of a lake that I could try it on. Yours was good to c-rig.

[Ebbetsguy]

Good question and observation. When I used to fish live bait there was a large pond we had permission to seine for minnows, we did observe many times, groups of like sized bass working the scholls of minnows and wacking out fish one by one. We spent some time to try and figure out why they chose the ones they did, to no avail

I was in a conversation on another board about this once, the California big bass hunters swore that bass schooled. I went looking for some research on the subject and found 2 things that showed that bass may group by year in packs and do not technically school

and that is school fish act in coordinated movements when feeding and especially when they swarm into those bait balls and other defensive configurations, these bass don’t do that

there is also some research being done to see if members of specific schools have a genetic marker, that’s in it's infancy now

[3dkicker]

We find them bunched up in groups on the river all the time. Normally they group in similar size ranges.

Give you a couple examples:
Two boats caught over 50 bass in two hours in a thirty yard stretch. All but one was under 15".

Fished a dock in one of the feeder creeks. First fish went 4.5 and the rest were 14.5". Caught 12 bass between us off the end of the dock.

Fished a small area off a point and caught 25+ bass (two people) in the 14-16 inch range in 30 minutes. Fished another area off a point 20 yards away and caught 5 between 2.5 and 5lbs.

If you find them enjoy it because it is a lot of fun.

[pig n jig]

It is especially true when jig fishing milfoil in my area.The bass of simular size hold together.I don't know how many times my fishing partners got mad at me for moving when we were catching fish.You have to keep moving to in order to find the bigger fish which is like finding a needle in the hay stack but when you find them,it is well worth the effort.The problem is most times you do not find them and are left not catching much of anything.It leads you to believe that you should have stayed on the fish that you found.......

[boloson]

Originally Posted by HarveysMinnow

Allow me to start off with a question and then I’ll tell a brief story related to the question:

Have any of you ever observed a group of Bass (a pack? a school?) foraging for food together?

i have a similar story but not as cool as yours.
about 9 am on a boat in my favorite spot in winnisquam lake NH. this particular area is surrounded by a 3.5 feet deep clear sand bar consisting of shell fish. in the middle of the sandbar is weed beds ranging in depth from 5 ft to 8 ft and leads off into deeper waters. tons of yellow perch, blue gills & pumpkin seeds in this area. my nephew just hooked a white perch (4 inch in length) and was waiting for me to unhook it when my brother spotted a huge bass along with a smaller bass patrolling the sandbar. the bigger bass appeared to be a double digit bass while the smaller one was maybe a 3 pounder. we started to toss everything we had towards the bass. the big one started gulping my nephew's perch but he couldnt set the hook. i tossed a plastic 5" worm & the smaller bass bit it but i missed the hook set also. the big bass continued to go for my nephews perch at least 3 more times but he missed all chances of setting the hook. a 3rd bass joined in and at this point we were all doing a jig on top of the boat.

never did catch them bass but it was an awesome sight. so answering your question....yes i have observed a pack of bass foraging for food.

[keithdog]

This past summer I observed this many times on one of my local lakes that previously never contained shad, but now does. The bass were working like wolf packs hearding the schools of shad to the surface and then exploding on the shad once they had them on top. Much the same way dolphins do schools of fish in the ocian. Made for some very exciting fishing trips.

[tarpon120]

I have been fortunate enough to be on the water when this happens, the last time on lake Guntersville we were in a creek late in the afternoon and they began feeding all around me and my wife. It did not matter what we threw, if we got where they were feeding we caught a fish. It lasted maybe 20 minutes or less and we moved up and down the creek with them only traveling maybe 50 yards total. But when it stopped it stopped completely. The fish were all about the same size and it was a blast, we went back the next two days and never saw it again. I have seen this a few times but this this was by far the best on a big lake. On a similar note I also fish a small river named the cahaba in a flat bottom boat or kayak and several years back me and my fishing partner were their when the May flies hatched and this was very similar and they would hiy anything as well.

[cassidyta]

It is fairly common in my area during this time of the year. Since most of my lakes stock trout, the bass will from wolf packs and move quickly through the coves. I have seen them pin in the trout and wait for one to move. The first time I saw it I thought it looked like a military movement they was they were patrolling the edges of the cove.
When mine do it, they don't stay in one location too long unless there is a food source readily available. I usually have to move up and down the shore to find them and cast in front of them to get a bite. The coolest part to me was watching half a dozen fish chasing a bait all the way to the boat.

[islandbass]

The bass in the lakes close to home have small populations of bass, but I have observed that when I have a fish on, my polarized glasses have enabled me to see other bass of similar size following the hooked bass around, as if they were trying to get the lure for themselves. I suppose that if these lakes had higher populations, I would have also seen this wolf pack in action.

It has lead me to think that on those rare occasions two bass are caught on one lure, that pack and pursuit behavior was in full effect. I've also observed that once again, in those multiple bass caught incidents, they have been similar in size.

[HarveysMinnow]

My thanks to all of you who have shared your observations on this topic. Very interesting behavior on the part of the Bass involved. Bass have undoubtedly evolved across the eons of their existence, and perhaps this 'pack mentality' is one result of their evolution.

/

[Ebbetsguy]

Thanks for putting it up, good conversation

[3dkicker]

Originally Posted by HarveysMinnow

Bass have undoubtedly evolved across the eons of their existence, and perhaps this 'pack mentality' is one result of their evolution./

When you think about it most fish exhibit this same activity. I see or have seen bluegill, crappie, catfish, carp, stripers, etc all do the same thing. Bait fish species, fresh and salt water, all pack or school as a way to protect themselves from predators.