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.