Finding Those Active Feeding Windows

[Zcoker]

18 hours ago, king fisher said:

     All predators hunt when they have windows of opportunity.  From bass to humans, if you are going to catch your prey, you have to hunt for them when you have the best chance of success, not when you feel like hunting.  Bass will feed when they have the best chance of successfully catching their prey.  A fisherman will have the best chance at catching a bass if he can determine when the bass has their best chance. 

   

 

 

All good points you mention here but predatory fish don't necessarily feed when they have the best opportunities or the best chance. Case in point: I can drop a live mullet or a live pinfish or a big jumbo shrimp right in the face of a big snook giving the best chance or opportunity in the world to eat but it won't so much as sniff it. Same thing with tarpon, I've given them the greatest of opportunity to eat but they only feed when they want to, or when those feeding periods hit. I've seen so many situations were predatory fish don't feed when given the opportunity or the chance. But they sure do feed when all the rest of the heard feeds, or when those feeding bells go off---bam! They all feed in a frenzy, all of them, for a short time and then all stops as if nothing had ever happened. I've seen this kind of behavior in both the freshwater and saltwater world so many times that it's certainly worth mentioning.  

[WRB]

Active vs inactive is Important factor to understand.

Black bass are predator fish, not scavengers, they hunt and eat live prey another factor to understand. 

Think of activity in levels from very active to very inactive with a transition neutral level being aware but not willing to hunt.

Like Zcoker I have dropped live bait in front of bass that were inactive without any reaction from the bass completely  ignored it. Sometimes a bass will see the live bait and move away no interest. These bass are in a inactive state and uncatchable in this mood.

The transition from being in a sleep mode to waking up I call neutral, the bass is aware of the nearby prey but not willing to hunt or chase the prey but can be caught as it becomes more aggressive. The active bass is alert and willing to hunt and chase down prey, these are the bass we catch with lures.

Keep in mind all these behaviors happen in cycles for each individual bass during a 24 hour daily cycle.

Bass are not school fish they are individual fish that will hunt in groups, but live as separate fish. The only time bass are a true school is as a fry for protection. The fry break up into groups as baby bass and singles as adults. Depending on the prey source bass will group up to hunt pelagic prey fish. These groups are referred to as wolf packs of very active feeding bass in reservoirs. 

Bass behavior adapts to their ecosystem, a pond bass behaves differently from a reservoir or large lake bass.

Tom

[king fisher]

1 hour ago, Zcoker said:

 

 

All good points you mention here but predatory fish don't necessarily feed when they have the best opportunities or the best chance. Case in point: I can drop a live mullet or a live pinfish or a big jumbo shrimp right in the face of a big snook giving the best chance or opportunity in the world to eat but it won't so much as sniff it. Same thing with tarpon, I've given them the greatest of opportunity to eat but they only feed when they want to, or when those feeding periods hit. I've seen so many situations were predatory fish don't feed when given the opportunity or the chance. But they sure do feed when all the rest of the heard feeds, or when those feeding bells go off---bam! They all feed in a frenzy, all of them, for a short time and then all stops as if nothing had ever happened. I've seen this kind of behavior in both the freshwater and saltwater world so many times that it's certainly worth mentioning.  

I  agree, and have witnessed the type of behavior you mentioned many times, from many predator's on land or water.  Many times a bass or other predator wont take advantage of an easy meal, for many unknown reasons.  Many times they are simply full.  My point was only, when they do decide to hunt a certain prey, much of the time the reason is because of something in the environment has given them an advantage over their prey.  That advantage may or may not be obvious, may or may not be predictable, and may or may not happen on a regular basis.  This is also a reason many times a bass will become selective, even though they have the ability to eat almost anything.

[B-Gee]

Zcoker says: "And being in the right place at the right time is a matter if indifference, in my opinion, because it appears that these bite windows go off like an atomic bomb, blasting the entire body of water...the fish flash-off all over the place. It's as if a single telepathic message is sent throughout the waterways. “

I have oberved this and to me it is what makes fishing so mysterious, unpredicatable and interesting.

[Zcoker]

1 hour ago, WRB said:

 

Bass behavior adapts to their ecosystem, a pond bass behaves differently from a reservoir or large lake bass.

Tom

 

This info right here is a key point to understand and get a grip on. Even as it pertains to these so called feeding windows. I've tried to express this point to a few people with zero understanding. Some folks just don't get it. But bass behave differently in each location. Bass in one lake or pond can act the complete opposite as bass in another lake or pond. Like in the Everglades, for example, I find the bass quite aggressive, like psycho aggressive to the point of pure brutality. They have one single pen pointed goal and that is to totally annihilate that friggin lure!! Yet in other places, I've had bass swipe at my lure, maybe a gentle pull, then a few tugs, no jump to speak of yet when I get the fish finally out of the water, it's a 8-9 pounder! Weird how that works but it's so true. Learning a new place, tossing out all that accumulated knowledge from that old place can be hard to do, yes it can. Adjusting or adapting to something new is never easy but it sure is necessary in the bass fishing scene to get a grip on these fish...literally to get a grip on their bodies lol 

[B-Gee]

I used to fish for Speckled Sea Trout from a johnboat anchored at a little grassy spot in the Gulf at the mouth of a river in Pasco County, Florida. There I found the “bite’ to be reasonably predictable. If I was there at sunrise during the Spring and Fall months and the tide was moving, not dead high or low, I almost always was able to catch at least 3 or 4 trout before the bite stopped, usually less than a half hour after it started.  The trout would come in from wherever they spent the night and chase bait at that location at sunup. This was pretty predictable as was the fact that they would not bite when the tide was not moving nor during the coldest and hottest months of the year when they would go elsewhere.

A couple of years ago I moved south to Collier County, Florida near a large freshwater pond where I fish from shore for largemouth bass. Here, I found the bass bite to be less predictable. As before, I fish at sunrise and most days I’m able to catch some bass. But each day is different. Most days I catch about three bass usually between 1 and 3.5 pounds. But some days I hook up with them on almost every cast and other days, nothing at all. I don’t notice any correlation between the weather or other conditions that would affect the bass bite. I don’t understand it, but it certainly is interesting, and I think I like it better this way than if it was the same every day.

[Catt]

What I have yet to determine is how do I know the bass are actively feeding?

 

After I catch 1 or 2, 4 or 5, 10 or 12.

 

[NittyGrittyBoy]

@Catt reading on bassblaster, Lee comments to dropping a spoon on white bass to get the Largemouth fired up, and ended up catching an 8lb bass. 

 

That's knowing how to force feed them. I doubt very many pros were dropping on white bass

[Zcoker]

11 hours ago, Catt said:

What I have yet to determine is how do I know the bass are actively feeding?

 

After I catch 1 or 2, 4 or 5, 10 or 12.

 

 

That's probably going to depend on just how many bass are in the area that you are fishing at that particular moment, which is the definition of being in the right place at the right time. So if one bass is in the area and you catch it, then that's most likely your answer until you either move on or wait around for the next feeding cycle.