Developing A Pattern?

[RoLo]

So your "pattern" was schooling bass?

 

If we were targeting breaking bass, I would agree that it was a 'schooling' pattern, but I was targeting a plant pattern,

with or without breaking bass. We see a lot of true schooling patterns here in fall (locals call it 'jump fishing'),

but they usually, but not always involve small, mobile bass that actively chase bait schools. 

 

In late June, I really wasn't expecting to find bass busting the surface, moreover the first fish weighed about 3 lbs.

Bass typically school in year-class, so I knew this wasn't a tight wad of mobile schoolies, but an aggregation

of older fish, which generally hunt in ambush without leaving the holding site. For that reason,

I positioned my boat on top of the spot where I seen the topwater commotion so I could study the cover there.

In the gin-clear water, it was easy to see lush clumps of peppergrass (pondweed) growing in 6-10 ft of water

surrounded by open water with good visibility. That was the plant pattern I sought that afternoon,

which we found intermittently along the entire eastern shore.

 

Roger

[SoFlaBassAddict]

It always amazes me how much RoLo knows about bass fishing. I'd like to consider myself a pretty good angler down here in our south Florida waters. I certainly realize that I'll never know everything, but each time I read his posts, I'm amazed as how much I still have left to go.

Always love reading what you post, Roger. Thanks buddy.

[WRB]

Shad patterns come in many forms, school bass feeding on shad schools that are following phytoplankton brought towards to surface by sunlight or zooplankton in cover. Shad hiding in cover, shad spawning, deep shad near structure and/or the thermocline are all patterns of bass behavior when feeding on shad.

Feeding activity often sets off a chain of feeding behavior with bass and bass group up to take advantage of some prey types like herding shad schools. This activity may be only happening in 1 location because the same set of circumstances are not present elsewhere on the same body of water at that time.

Tom

[Catt]

If we were targeting breaking bass, I would agree that it was a 'schooling' pattern, but I was targeting a plant pattern,

with or without breaking bass. We see a lot of true schooling patterns here in fall (locals call it 'jump fishing'),

but they usually, but not always involve small, mobile bass that actively chase bait schools.

In late June, I really wasn't expecting to find bass busting the surface, moreover the first fish weighed about 3 lbs.

Bass typically school in year-class, so I knew this wasn't a tight wad of mobile schoolies, but an aggregation

of older fish, which generally hunt in ambush without leaving the holding site. For that reason,

I positioned my boat on top of the spot where I seen the topwater commotion so I could study the cover there.

In the gin-clear water, it was easy to see lush clumps of peppergrass (pondweed) growing in 6-10 ft of water

surrounded by open water with good visibility. That was the plant pattern I sought that afternoon,

which we found intermittently along the entire eastern shore.

Roger

So the pepper grass was the pattern & this grass made the bass school?

[RoLo]

So the pepper grass was the pattern & this grass made the bass school?

 

It's more of an 'aggregation' than a school.

Any lair that's ideally suited to bass habitat will attract more than one bass, which tend to aggregate at that site.

In a healthy lake where forage is plentiful, adult bass do much less wandering than anglers might envision.

Whether it's pike, smallmouth, muskies or walleyes, when you bone up on the preferred habitat

of the predator's primary forage, you invariably find that predator and prey occupy the identical niche.

Consequently, predator and prey are destined to cross paths simply by seeking their preferred habitat.

which inspires predators to lie in ambush. In waterbodies where the primary prey grows scarce,

it will be replaced by another form of prey. For instance, in Lake Erie the round goby filled the gap

left by spottail shiner (automation at its finest).

 

Bottom terrain is basically constant, but vegetative cover is subject to change, both seasonally and

from year-to-year. However, I would bet the ranch that as long as those cabbage coverts remain unchanged,

they're going to hold bass all summer. There are waypoint coordinates in my GPS unit that are 15 yrs old,

and those founded on bottom contour produce today as they did 15 years ago.

 

Roger

[WRB]

You might want to take a minute and watch the old video that Raul posted in know your prey. You may think you know more about bass behavior the Glenn Lau but I doubt it.

Bass that group up or school are a separate group of bass sometimes referred to as wolf packs. The feeding Roger experienced may have been a wolf pack feeding in the area he was fishing. Was it a pattern or a group of active bass that would have responded to several different presentation or lures, you never know.

Catt is a successful tournament bass angler and knows first hand that several patterns are successful during a tournament, you hope your pattern wins.

Tom

[Catt]

I aint disagreeing with RoLo, quite the contrary, he has clarified what he wrote vs. What I thought I read. Not just on this subject but on previous subjects as well.

In the whole scheme of bass fishing patterning bass is the most mentally demanding!

"If you worry about what might be...and wonder what might have been...you will ignore what is."

[RoLo]

You might want to take a minute and watch the old video that Raul posted in know your prey. You may think you know more about bass behavior the Glenn Lau but I doubt it. Bass that group up or school are a separate group of bass sometimes referred to as wolf packs. The feeding Roger experienced may have been a wolf pack feeding in the area he was fishing. Was it a pattern or a group of active bass that would have responded to several different presentation or lures, you never know. Catt is a successful tournament bass angler and knows first hand that several patterns are successful during a tournament, you hope your pattern wins.

Tom

 

Catt and I were not in an argument, we were in a discussion.

Like a game of chess, we both knew what the other was thinking,

and where the other was going. It's threads like this where the members

can learn the most, threads that stay on point and expose nuances

in learning experiences.

 

Yet, in mid-discussion you invited (hijacked) readers from a 'patterning' thread

to a thread about 'prey'. You mentioned Glenn Lau who I happened to follow closely,

but Glen's findings never concluded that bass are long-distance foragers.

I simply related to our most recent outing (2 weeks ago) because I thought it was relevant

(i.e. Fish determine the pattern, not the fisherman). Although you weren't even there,

you suggested the notion of a mile-long wolf pack.  Your motive confuses me. 

 

Roger

[WRB]

What was suggested was a perspective on bass behavior that may have been helpful to others that read this post.

Nothing was mentioned about school bass verses home body bass in this thread, the Glenn Lua video was good opportunity to bring this up without creating a debate.

Tom

[RoLo]

What was suggested was a perspective on bass behavior that may have been helpful to others that read this post.

Nothing was mentioned about school bass verses home body bass in this thread, the Glenn Lua video was good opportunity to bring this up without creating a debate.

Tom

 

I strongly suggest that you re-read this thread.

[WRB]

I strongly suggest that you re-read this thread.

Schooling bass as a separate group of bass than home body bass isn't the same as a group of home body bass schooling to take advantage of baitfish at that moment of time.

I will go back and read the entire thread when I get some free time.

Your experiences are different than mine, mine differ from yours. I know little about shallow Florida natural or man made low land coastal impoundments having only fished there a hand full of times. California doesn't have any native bass, they all have been transplanted and adapted to the various ecosystems from the delta to a wide range of rivers, deep Colorado river canyon and highland water storage and a few power generating type reservoirs. Clear Lake is the only large natural lake with a good bass population in CA. NLMB, FLMB, Alabama and Kentucky Spotted bass, Shoal bass, Smallmouth bass are non native bass to California and they behave differently then in their natural range, they had to adapt.

Enjoy your 4th of July Holiday.

Tom