Are my bass chasing bait?

[10,000 lakes Bassin]

In all of the YouTube videos I watch, and all of the articles I read talk about largemouth chasing around baitfish this time of year. The lakes around me don’t have any shad, but they have some small baitfish like shinners etc. but I’m pretty sure that most of the bass are eating bluegill, and maybe some crawfish. This might be a hard question to answer being that you don’t have too much info about my situation but you could still maybe help me out a little.
In your experience will largemouth in grassy northern lakes with bluegill as the main forage still chase around bait balls like everyone talks about? Will the young of the year bluegill kind of act like shad?
If not where will the bass be and what will they be doing? I hear a lot about green weeds so that will definitely be on my radar next time I hit the water. Where else should I look?

[bowhunter63]

Keep a look out for bait the surface . Sometimes there pretty close and feeding on them. Look for rocky flats with crawdads great spots 

[Pat Brown]

In my experience balls of bluegill/shiners/baby bass (much like shad in appearance and behaviour) start popping up around March and don't stop being an important part of LMB diet until the water gets to be less than 50° in shallow water and sunfish and shiners move deep.

 

They suspend on sunny days - usually around some kind of cover for the shade and protection it provides and they swim around more open water on cloudy days and relate to the surface more (usually).

 

I find the largest bass often relate to these extremely tiny baitfish - not to eat them - to eat what's eating them.

 

😎😉🎣

[10,000 lakes Bassin]

3 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

I find the largest bass often relate to these extremely tiny baitfish - not to eat them - to eat what's eating them.

So you find that the biggest bass are eating the small bass, and or the big sunfish that are chasing that bait?  Now that you say that I remember catching a small bass probably 10-12” and it spiting up like 20 tiny minnows. What so I’ll d be the best way to target them? Maybe a glide bait, or a jig if they’re in the grass? 

[Pat Brown]

13 minutes ago, August said:

So you find that the biggest bass are eating the small bass, and or the big sunfish that are chasing that bait?  Now that you say that I remember catching a small bass probably 10-12” and it spiting up like 20 tiny minnows. What so I’ll d be the best way to target them? Maybe a glide bait, or a jig if they’re in the grass? 

 

They're probably mostly keyed in on the vulnerable juvenile sunfish and bass that are in that 3 to 5-in range for the most part this time of year that are indeed targeting those little tiny phytoplankton eaters.

[gim]

I believe the OP is in Minnesota, so maybe I can help here.

 

Most waterbodies here do not have shad.  Some of the larger river systems in the southern portion of MN have them, but the individual, isolated land of 10,000 lakes do not have them.  So the assessment of sunfish being the primary forage in most largemouth lakes is accurate.  Obviously they eat more than just sunfish, but that is the main prey source here.  I caught about 16 incher on Saturday morning, and while unhooking it, it spit up a 5 inch sunfish on the deck.

 

I have been fishing twice in the past 3 days for largemouth (pre fishing Sat, contest yesterday), and both outings were directly correlated to sunfish being present in an area.  If I was fishing with a plastic, I could feel them jack-hammering on the end of it.  I also saw several schools of them visually near the surface.  But every once in a while, a bass would strike too.

 

If you're fishing in a smallmouth lake, then the main forage is crayfish, followed by perch.

 

My approach is to start with a moving bait and once you get a strike or hook a fish, immediately stop there and slow down with another tactic because there's very likely more bass around.  Beat it into a pulp.  I caught about 15 fish in one small area on Saturday morning doing exactly this and yesterday in the contest I put two 4 pounders in the boat in 10 minutes.

[10,000 lakes Bassin]

37 minutes ago, gimruis said:

 both outings were directly correlated to sunfish being present in an area. 

How would you find areas with sunfish present? I would assume they would be around the healthiest grass, but would you physically see them or would you look for them on sonar? 
What moving baits did you have the best luck with? Is it similar to the baits guys use to catch bass eating shad schools? (Flukes, jerkbaits, topwaters, underspins, etc.) 
As the water temps drop into the 60s will those schools move up shallower? 
Sorry for all the questions @gimruis and @Pat Brown

[gim]

Happy to help.  Sonar might work, but I either 1) visually look for them near the surface, or 2) have them pecking away at a plastic to confirm.  Sonar isn't 100% accurate.  It could be clutter in the water column.

 

I like a spinnerbait, chatterbait, or a crankbait (if its not super weedy) as a starting lure.  No topwater for this guy, they've seen it too much and won't react.  Try variations that closely resemble a sunfish pattern.  A jerk bait could also work once the water drops below 60.

 

You might see a slight move towards shallower water but it won't be a mass migration like it is in the spring before/during the spawn.  The key is weeds that remain green.  That's where the whole food cycle starts.  Green weeds give off oxygen and attracts invertebrates, which small sunfish feed on.  Brown or dead weeds are no good.

[10,000 lakes Bassin]

Are there certain locations on a lake map that will catch your eye, like points or humps that you will check first? 

[gim]

I'm generally not fishing unknown lakes, so I can't really help you there.  I already kind of have an idea of where to start because I fish the same 8-10 lakes every season and I've come to gauge seasononal movements based on that experience.

 

Maybe someone else can offer some advice on map scouting here.

[Pat Brown]

I like to start looking at the creeks and flats and points etc where the wind has been blowing into it for a few days or even just for a little while if no wind for the last few days etc.

 

The food chain starts with things that can't move themselves - the wind moves them.

 

As far as baits to target LMB?

 

My baits never change regardless of the forage present - so that's not gonna help you much more than saying - keep tossing stuff you're good at fishing.  In the early fall when water is clear I usually go small and as water quality gets worse with rain and dying vegetation I go bigger and bulkier to displace more water and be more noticeable.

[casts_by_fly]

like pat said- follow the food.  big fish eat little fish.  little fish eat tiny fish.  tiny fish eat plankton and insects.  insects and plankton are mostly coverned by wind/wave generated current.  if there is no current, then they will be in grassy areas and shallows.  If there is current then they will be in the grass that's in the current.

[10,000 lakes Bassin]

6 hours ago, Pat Brown said:

 In the early fall when water is clear I usually go small

How small do you go? Like spinning rod small, or just not huge spinnerbaits and stuff? 

[10,000 lakes Bassin]

9 hours ago, gimruis said:

The key is weeds that remain green.  That's where the whole food cycle starts. 

How do you go about finding green weeds? Do you visually look for them in the water, or do you throw something like a crankbait through them and see if what comes up is green?

[WRB]

Basically lakes have 2 types of bait fish; dormasol (near shore and palegic (0ff shore). 
Northern lakes like southern usually have some of both, just different species.

Crappie, Yellow perch, White fish, Emerald shiners, herring, alewives are pelagic fish bass can target if small enough.

Bluegill, Pumpkin Seeds, Green Sunfish, Bull Heads, Suckers are a few common Dermasol bait fish. Everyone thinks Bluegills are a preferred bait fish but they tough for bass to swallow too spiny preferring soft ray fish.

Young of the year crappie and Perch are often preferred over Bluegill.

In your lakes I would look for crappie and perch by watching for fish eating diving birds. These pelagic fish are not large schools like southern lakes with Shad schools.

Tom

[gim]

Most of the time I agree with Toms advice here. This is one case where I do not.

 

Rarely are there feeding birds on these smaller inland lakes. I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw it here, so that is not going to be a reliable sign indicating schools of bait fish here. The bigger smallmouth lakes have cormorants sitting on the rocks.

 

If you look at the DNRs lake finder, you can see the results of the most recent survey done on that lake and 95% of the time, sunfish are the highest population of smaller fish present.

 

Also, if you hear a fish surface, 9 out of times it is a carp. Not a bass.

 

 

[WRB]

Mergansers, Loons, gulls and cormorants are common fish eating birds in northern lakes. Smaller the lake and colder the weather the fewer birds.

So much is written about southern reservoirs that isn’t applicable to northern lakes, fall baitfish is one of them.

Tom

[10,000 lakes Bassin]

57 minutes ago, WRB said:

So much is written about southern reservoirs that isn’t applicable to northern lakes, fall baitfish is one of them. 

So it’s not worth trying to fish around bait in northern lakes? 

[Pat Brown]

8 hours ago, August said:

So it’s not worth trying to fish around bait in northern lakes? 

 

I don't think that's how I'd interpret what Tom is saying.

 

No matter where you are - bass are part of a food web.  They feed on things that feed on things that feed on things.

 

This time of year, minnows and tiny baitfish are a very important part of the diet of everything everywhere because winter is coming everywhere.

[Swamp Girl]

This is a great thread. So much bass-catching information in it. I've complimented Pat's teaching in the past, so this time, I compliment girmuis's, casts_by_fly's, and Tom's. I especially liked gimruis's observation that bluegills pecking at your lure can mark the presence of bass. 

 

A few days ago, I hooked four bass in four casts adjacent to feeding loons. Note I didn't write "floating loons," but "feeding loons." They were diving and diving, marking baitfish for me. They were my FFS.

[casts_by_fly]

13 hours ago, gimruis said:

Most of the time I agree with Toms advice here. This is one case where I do not.

 

Rarely are there feeding birds on these smaller inland lakes. I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw it here, so that is not going to be a reliable sign indicating schools of bait fish here. The bigger smallmouth lakes have cormorants sitting on the rocks.

 

If you look at the DNRs lake finder, you can see the results of the most recent survey done on that lake and 95% of the time, sunfish are the highest population of smaller fish present.

 

Also, if you hear a fish surface, 9 out of times it is a carp. Not a bass.

 

 

 

This is my experience in most of the northern NJ lakes also.  We have a lot of lakes that I'd classify as northern natural lakes even if some have been dammed.  Weeds, deep weed edges, bluegills, often another apex predator over the bass (musky and pike), etc.  We DO have shad or alewifes in a lot of the lakes though, so that changes the baitfish dynamics a bit depending on the lake.

[Lottabass]

All good advice here.  Let me add another solution.  Where I fish is mostly bluegill forage, no shad.  Bluegill spawn all summer, and I think the full moon period is the best.  I've found bass in and around those bluegill beds all summer long.  Sometimes the bass are in deeper water but usually close by.  The lakes I fish are also soft bottom and dirty water.  I think those bluegill beds are found where the bottom is a little harder and that's a plus.  I use sidescan to find those beds.  Determining the lure to use and the speed and depth that triggers the bass to bite is the next step.

[Pumpkin Lizard]

Bluegill don't ball up typically in my observations. The little ones that the bass like hide around cover looking scared all the time. You can see them in super shallow water in the weeds and I would imagine they are further out in the weeds too.  I've seen bass cruising along the bank stopping periodically to scan for victims. Usually in the late afternoon and evenings. If I see bass busting in super shallow water I assuming they are smashing bluegills/bream. I assume the same thing is happening in slightly deeper water in the weeds and I just can't see it. I think they are an important source of food for them.

 

I think bass targeting bluegill are probably just opportunistic too so it's not like you need to match the hatch.

 

Nice video of a bass feeding on bluegill.

 

 

 

[gim]

9 minutes ago, Pumpkinseed Lizard said:

You can see them in super shallow water in the weeds and I would imagine they are further out in the weeds too. 

 

The ones I saw were in about 4-12 feet of water the last couple outings.  They aren't balled up like a super tight school of open water bait fish though.  They're just kind of hanging out in a loose school near the surface.  I have no doubt that largemouth feed on them during many seasonal times of year here.  Of course there are other sources of food too at certain times of the year but they are so prevelant in many of our smaller, natural largemouth lakes that has to represent a primary food source almost all the time.

[Pumpkin Lizard]

Last night there was a pretty good mayfly emergence and as they were returning to water to lay eggs the bluegills were out in force eating the mayflies and the bass were eating the bluegills. It was pretty good. This pond also has a fair amount of shad.