Ever had this happen?

[T-Billy]

8 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

Are they structure-centered, Tim?

Always. There will be schools of bait and/or cover also, but it's always on some type of structure, usually a point or flat adjacent to deep water. 

[Jar11591]

6 hours ago, Dogface said:

 

I think I fished that same hump on Black Lake. BTW did you find the single tree with all the crappie? ? Seriously I have had experiences like that on Black Lake. 

Don’t remember the tree, but that lake is something. About a dozen times I got to witness massive sturgeon skyrocket out of the water 25 yards from the boat. Hooked into a couple mystery fish that completely spooled spinning reels. Never got to seen them. My buddy hooked the biggest bullhead I’ve ever seen on a chug bug of all things. 

[The Bassman]

This is more of a conditional situation than actual structure or cover. The ponds I fish serve to gather rainwater in place of storm sewers. High flows from the drains after heavy rain are bass magnets. One that I fish regularly can produce bass on every cast for long periods of time under ideal conditions.

[N Florida Mike]

12 hours ago, Bird said:

Y'all sure you're not talking about Crappie ? ?

They don't stage up that heavy around here, maybe a half a dozen from 1 tree.

 

Now Smallmouth below a dam here can be all day action but never the case with Largemouth.

Or bream? Once a friend and me caught a bream or had one bite every time we cast for a couple hours. It was a 4 by 4 spot between cattails. We caught every type of bream native to Florida in that spot. We even caught a few mullet there…We never counted them , but we had a 5 gallon bucket so full that the last few were falling off the top. This was at  Crescent lake Fl.,where we had a church men’s retreat ( and fish fry ) !

[Mike L]

43 minutes ago, N Florida Mike said:

Or bream? Once a friend and me caught a bream or had one bite every time we cast for a couple hours. It was a 4 by 4 spot between cattails. We caught every type of bream native to Florida in that spot. We even caught a few mullet there…We never counted them , but we had a 5 gallon bucket so full that the last few were falling off the top. This was at  Crescent lake Fl.,where we had a church men’s retreat ( and fish fry ) !

I Love that lake just don’t fish it enough. 
Very underrated. 
 

The end near Dead Lake has been the place to go for years!

 

 

 

 

Mike

[TnRiver46]

Crappie and white bass, yea. LM and SM never. Spotted bass once on a mud flat, we got 19 in a row. Not sure if mud flat counts 

[Pat Brown]

Bringing back fond memories with this thread for me.

 

My family used to take me and my brothers up to Michigan to stay in a cottage that my mom's family owned up at the tip of the thumb on Lake Huron for summer fishing trips.

 

We'd go up there and fish for Smallmouth, Largemouth, Musky, Pike, Walleye, Perch, Lake Trout, Salmon, Sheepshead /whatever we could persuade to bite with Rapala crankbaits and spinning tackle from our boat cruising around the rock flats and boulder piles in the crystal clear water.

 

One summer, we got up there later than normal during what I can only assume was the smallmouth early fall feed.

 

I remember maybe 3 afternoons during the two weeks we stayed where my father and my brothers and I strapped tackle boxes and nets and pliers for hook removal to our belts and waded off the bank into knee high water and cast our shallow cranks out onto smooth medium sized rock flats and caught Smallmouth in every cast til the sun went down.

 

Literally I have no idea how many fish we caught.  It was every single cast a fish between 1-3 lbs.

 

Learned a LOT about bite detection, landing fish with treble hooks and also safe hook removal in those wild afternoons.  I was probably 13 years old.

 

I'd say that having experiences like that definitely showed me what fishing CAN be and sowed the seeds that made me a life long angler and eventually an obsessed bass fisherman.

 

In my experience this far, largemouth fishing down South is the polar opposite of that fine memory, let me tell you.  You work for those bites and better be prepared when you get em.

 

I just know that if I had a day like that down here on largemouth I'd probably have a heart attack!

 

?

 

[Swamp Girl]

5 hours ago, T-Billy said:

Always. There will be schools of bait and/or cover also, but it's always on some type of structure, usually a point or flat adjacent to deep water. 

 

Ah, that explains another time I caught SMB after SMB. We were cold front fishing a wilderness lake in northwestern Ontario. We'd struggled to catch fish because of a cool, howling northwest wind, which bullied our canoes. By the sixth day, my fishing buddies were wind beaten, but I felt guilty that they'd come so far and caught so little, so I kept plugging, dropping a leech below a split shot here and there. Then, about 15 feet off a point, I found them. Seemingly all of them. I dropped my leech about ten feet and my tip twitched. Bass. Then nine more as quickly as I could rebait. I scoot back for the boys at camp and we caught bass after bass after bass after bass. Eventually, I dropped my rod and enjoyed my buddies' joy. It was the same the next morning, our last morning, at the same point.  

 

@Pat Brown, I love your story and was grinning through it. 

[Bankc]

Not really.  I have many times caught 5 or 6 off a single spot before the bite dies down.   But I've never experienced, with black bass anyway, a day where you can catch a ten or more off a single piece of structure.  

Now crappie and white bass are a different story.  

[Swamp Girl]

1 hour ago, Bankc said:

Not really.  I have many times caught 5 or 6 off a single spot before the bite dies down.   But I've never experienced, with black bass anyway, a day where you can catch a ten or more off a single piece of structure.  

Now crappie and white bass are a different story.  

 

I'm observing in this thread that it's more common with smallmouth and largemouth and I'm assuming that OK is a largemouth state.

[Bankc]

8 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

 

I'm observing in this thread that it's more common with smallmouth and largemouth and I'm assuming that OK is a largemouth state.

In my region, yeah.  There's not a large smallmouth population around here.  They exist, but I think our large white bass populations (our official state fish, go figure) keep them in check.  Though we do have a lot of spotted bass, which can school up.  But I don't think they school up in large numbers like the smallmouth that I've read about.  Or I haven't observed them to around here, anyway.  

[TnRiver46]

47 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

 

I'm observing in this thread that it's more common with smallmouth and largemouth and I'm assuming that OK is a largemouth state.

I’m in smallmouth city, USA and I’ve never witnessed such. I have seen tournament competitors accomplish such a feat offshore on the old river ledge with LM but never SM 

[Alex from GA]

I've caught 20 or so Alabama bass on a 3-4' ledge every cast many years ago.  The most fish I remember in one spot are Calico bass in a kelp bed in Baja in the 80s.  Bent the barbs down on jig hooks with Scampi Tails and jack poled.  Had 7 gunny sacks full and the 7x12' floor of the boat 2 deep.  Took a 120 quart ice chest home full of sacked filets for a company fish fry.

[Functional]

On 3/19/2023 at 12:53 PM, Jar11591 said:

About a decade ago I was fishing on Black Lake in northern NY. We came across a little hump on the depth finder. Nothing crazy, it just went from a 10' flat bottom to about 4-5' with some grass. So we started fishing, and the smallmouth must have been stacked gill to gill down there because we started catching them non stop. 12" up to 19". This tiny mid lake hump must have had hundreds and hundreds of bass on it. Any cast that didn't produce at least a bite was surprising. Each fish would have 2-3 followers. I was throwing a DT-6, but it didn't matter. Anything you dropped down they would demolish. One of the craziest days of fishing I've ever had.

Black Lake is a "hidden" gem. For a couple years 4 of us rented a cabin and went every year in May just before the vegetation really grew in super thick. We all live in NC now but we talk all the time how much we miss that lake. 

[WIGuide]

I've had it happen from time to time. It's awesome when you find them schooled up and start a feeding frenzy. A great memory is putting my dad on one of his first off shore schooling experiences. We were fishing a point that sticks out into the river channel with one really big stump on it. The stump is on a hard spot and we found a really nice school on it. In about 45 minutes I believe we caught close to 30 without moving the boat. 

[Jar11591]

1 hour ago, Functional said:

Black Lake is a "hidden" gem. For a couple years 4 of us rented a cabin and went every year in May just before the vegetation really grew in super thick. We all live in NC now but we talk all the time how much we miss that lake. 

It’s an exciting lake to fish! I stayed there a couple summers during the big algae bloom but it didn’t seem to effect the fishing. Just turned the water the color of pea soup. And it keeps the recreational boaters besides fishermen to a minimum. I hope I can get back there soon. 

[Bankbeater]

Around 15 or 16 years ago we took the boat back into a creek channel.  There were these two stumps sticking up out of the water and they were about 4 feet apart.   I was fishing with a jig, but didn't get any bites until I cast out past the stumps and then dragged the jig back between them.  I got 12 bass in about 15 minutes.

[N Florida Mike]

11 hours ago, Mike L said:

I Love that lake just don’t fish it enough. 
Very underrated. 
 

The end near Dead Lake has been the place to go for years!

 

 

 

 

Mike

We were at the north side of bear Island…

[Miabucman]

Yes, I have had it happen a few times.  One instance was I when I was fishing a local weekday club tournament and I was a "new" guy to the rest of the club.  Launch time was 5:30 and it was 90 degrees.  Everyone was beating the banks and I found a small point in about 8-10 feet of water. I switched to a Carolina rig and the bite was on. I had a bite 9 out of 10 casts and had a great time. While many were short fish, I finished with enough keepers to win my first tournament. 

Funny thing was that there was some grumbling at the weigh in because me and my partner were not one of the "regular" teams that normally placed. 

[gim]

4 minutes ago, Miabucman said:

Funny thing was that there was some grumbling at the weigh in because me and my partner were not one of the "regular" teams that normally placed. 

There's a term for that.  They call 'em "ringers."

[geo g]

I am the guy that will usually stays too long on one spot.  If I find a piece of significant structure with a fish on it.  I will work it slowly  trying to find others.  Bass will often hang with other bass of similar size.  I have often caught several nice ones off a big piece of structure, especially if it is isolated on a big open flat area, or channel bottom.  I will slow down and work it methodically.  Painfully slow at times!  Just what I like to do, it has worked many times!

[TnRiver46]

On 3/23/2023 at 10:12 AM, geo g said:

I am the guy that will usually stays too long on one spot.  If I find a piece of significant structure with a fish on it.  I will work it slowly  trying to find others.  Bass will often hang with other bass of similar size.  I have often caught several nice ones off a big piece of structure, especially if it is isolated on a big open flat area, or channel bottom.  I will slow down and work it methodically.  Painfully slow at times!  Just what I like to do, it has worked many times!

That’s how I roll as well. It burns me sometimes but I don’t mind floating around in a boat 

[DTFWI]

I remember catching 10+ bass from one spot. Best fishing day as they were consistent 3lb +

[cheezyridr]

when my son was about 5 or 5, i took him camping. we woke up one morning to a summer rain that was going to last all day. we went fishing anyhow.  when we got to the pond, there was an old mad sitting under an umbrella drowning some minnows.  i asked him if  they were bitin. he said he'd been there an hour or so, and not one bite.  i walked past a respectable distance, and ficked out my secret weapon, the white double willow. 

it hit the water, immediate swirl.  nice 3 lber.  the old man gave me a thumbs up. 

for the next hour or so, almost every cast, i caught a bass. most were 3-5 lbs. i was letting my son reel them in.  at one point, the old guy got annoyed and packed up and left. my son still remembers that day

[river-rat]

 

When the water starts falling in the Atchafalaya Basin in early summer after the spring flood, it's not unusual to fish one drain where the water is coming out of the swamp into a canal or natural bayou and literally catch 50+ bass in that one spot.