Largemouth Blitz

[elias444]

Recently, my dad and I were up on our New England pond sitting out on the dock when we saw fish blitzing on the surface out in the middle of the lake. Picture bluefish, arched backs, heads out of the water, all in a concentrated area. So we got in a boat, grabbed some rods and went out to investigate. A Blitz started and I cast into the boil and brought out a 22 inch largemouth, in the middle of the lake! Now as far as we know, there are no baitfish like alewives in the pond, however there are white perch. Our theory was that, the white perch fry clumped together in the middle of the lake, and all the big largemouths left the safety of their spots in the weeds to feed on this white perch "Bait ball". We have no idea if this is correct reasoning, yet have never heard of anything like this happening before. Can anyone shed some light onto this mystery? Has this happened to you? Do you know why it might happen?

Thanks, I'm really curious

Elias

[rockchalk06]

Its really hot and dry most everywhere. Bass will leave their spots and deviate from the norm to get an easy meal.

[Bluebasser86]

A lake I used to fish a lot they would chase the schools of bass fry away from the bank and school them up like shad and bust them in the middle of the lake. They lake had a lot of stunted bass so other bass was about the only thing for them to eat.

[AK-Jax86]

Fish were hungry

[Mad Fisherman]

Fish were hungry

Yeah. Maybe they were running low on other food.

[dafaddah]

I've experienced any number of blitzes fishing saltwater but never fresh water before last night. The water was dead calm and I'd just put my boat in the lake and was trolling a spreader with small shad plastics while heading to my favorite spot when pockets of boiling water started all around me. I got my trolling rig out of the water and switched to a small shad lure blade and had a great time catching and releasing 10-12 inch largemouth bass for about half an hour. The phenomenon stopped almost as quickly as it started. Curiously enough I also snagged a fair sized blugill that had joined the party.