Find the baitfish----->find the bass (deeper water)

[Catt]

3 hours ago, Wayne P. said:

Look for ACTIVITY, unorganized schools, not organized schools. These will cover most technologies:

There it is!

[Todd2]

10 hours ago, Wayne P. said:

Look for ACTIVITY, unorganized schools, not organized schools. These will cover most technologies.

 

 

 

Wayne, can you explain unorganized vs organized.? I thought the shad tightened up when bass were feeding. 

Also, out of all of those images. This one is what I see the most as I pass main lake cuts...drains, whatever you call them. How would you fish that? I usually will try some cranks and then go to a jig if that doesn't work. Are those bass on the far right of the screen in the ditch? I say ditch because it doesn't look like a channel that extends to the left. 

[Wayne P.]

Organized=not disturbed and all together

 

Unorgainized = starting to separate because of preditors

 

The "ditch" is the main lake creek/river channel at a bend. Yes, larger returns are larger fish (bass).

[slonezp]

11 hours ago, WRB said:

Alewife are not affected by cold water, Threadfin can't survive water colder than 45 degrees and not sure about Gizzard Shad, the adults are too big for bass, only the juvenile Gizzard Shad under 10"-12"  are good bass forage.

The screen shots are from highend sonar units, your Garmin can't separate signals near or on the bottom and fish ID icons will show up on any suspended target strong enough to return a signal; air/gas bobbles, perch, crappie, carp, bass and anything with air bladder for example.

Tom

The gizzard shad can handle cold water. The only time I've seen a huge die off locally was 3 or 4 years ago on a shallow body of water (average depth 4-6ft) We had a real harsh winter an had thick ice on the water for better than 4 months. During a  "normal" Chicago winter, the gizzard shad will survive.

As far as alewives are concerned, they are the main forage on Lake Michigan. They have played a pivotal role in the increased size of the smallmouth (can't give all the credit to the goby). In the 1970's we had an overabundance of alewives which would die off during the heat of the summer and wash up on all the beaches creating an ungodly smell. The answer was to stock salmonoids which are non native to the Great Lakes. Over the course of many years, the salmonoid population flourished and the alewife and smelt population was decimated. Another result of the salmonoid stocking was the spread of VHS disease. Due to lack of funding in IL, WI, and MI, stocking was reduced to a minimum 8-10 years ago. Well, the alewives are back in huge numbers and the result is 5, 6, 7, and 8lb smallmouth. Salmon populations are down as are the number of charter boats that target them.      

[Paul Roberts]

9 hours ago, Todd2 said:

Wayne, can you explain unorganized vs organized.? I thought the shad tightened up when bass were feeding. 

Schooling species "tighten up" for several reasons:

-They do so when inactive -under conditions not conducive to feeding- so they can feel more relaxed under protection of the school.

-They may tighten up for swimming efficiency when migrating.

-And they will tighten up as a defense against attacking predators, what's called school polarization, which makes it more difficult for predators to get a lock on individual prey. Actively feeding schools, in contrast, loosen up. What makes these worth looking for is that feeding prey fishes are distracted prey fishes, and more easily surprised by predators. And looser schools make individuals more easy to target.

Another important opportunity for predators like bass to effectively feed on schooling prey is in current, in which the smaller prey are corralled by water pressure. This corralling is used by bass at nearly all times, against cover, the bottom, the surface film, etc... -what are called "ambush points" by anglers, whether we recognize exactly what's going on or not. This explains the difference between "vulnerable prey" and "available prey" -which are not the same thing.

[TnRiver46]

21 hours ago, everythingthatswims said:

I fish lakes with what I consider too much bait. If I see a cloud of bait, I know there's no reason to fish it. Bait with predatory fish underneath them (striper or largemouth)? Sometimes I can catch those but often they are just staying near their food source so that when they get hungry they can get after it. 

 

I don't get excited unless I see a cloud of bait that is being broken up by fish with lines going every which way and small clouds of bait mixed in with them! Then it's game on.

Couldn't agree more. In the Tennessee River you can walk across Shad year 'round. Everyone says "find the bait and you found the bass" but the entire River is bait so no kidding...... The bass are in the river.........