two questions about bass behavior

[Guest the_mud_man]

I went fishing this weekend and while I was fishjing this striping pit I started to notice that every few minutes the blue gills would be all over the shore hiding in roots stumps any way and anywhere they could hide. Then ther would be some pretty nice bass cruising the area they would come up from the deepend and head twoards the shallow sandy end of the pit. There were some nests and bass on them already so the spawn has started. I switched to a Bream Colored Frybaby and every time the blugills headed to shore I cast past them and hooked up very frequently. Has any one ever seen this cruising behavior,Ive fished this pit sevral years but its first time I noticed this pattern,is it common? Quest # 2 A very large bass followed this lure a couple of times I even stopped reeling and let it float to the top and rest then when i twitched it and started to retrive the lure the fish mad a beeline to it only to pul back at the last second as if to say Who you kidding with that ? What am I doing wrong with this bait?

[fun_all_wrong]

You might want to change colors....  or instead of slowing down- slow down for a second- then burn it....  You might also throw a fluke or one of those senk....  I cant even say it...    Tease him with it until you really get him fired up...   That is what I would do.

[KU_Bassmaster.]

Switch to something that you can slow down.  He is probably chasing your bait off a bed and once he sees that it is no threat, he goes about his business.  Sounds like a male bass chasing everything off his bed.  I like to use tubes, crawtubes, jigs, basically anything fairly bulky and in a bright color so it is easy to see.

[Shad_Master]

I've got two stories that are similar to this.  Last year, early in the spring, I stopped at city lake that was on the way to an appointment.  I decided to try my luck and was throwing GULP turtle back worms along the bank.  I began to notice the blue gill were cruising around the area and took an interest in the GULP.  They weren't big enough to swallow it but they would bit the tail and pull on it.  I was tempting this one and he was an aggressive little ***.  He kept going after the GULP.  But this one time, as I was dragging him along, there was an explosion out of the weeds and this bass came shooting out and the blue gill was gone!

Several weeks later, I was pre-fishing from the bank before a club tournament.  I noticed that the blue gill were bedding along the bank and knew that we had an early blast off the next morning.  Figuring that bass might move into the area to feed on some of the blue gill, I decided I would start there.  But a storm came through just before blast off and we had to delay for about 45 minutes.  When I got there the water was milk chocolate, but I decided to throw a few anyway.  I was using a 7" turtle back worm to try and keep the blue gill off of it, but they kept nipping at the tail until it was down to about 3".  I laughed and decided to make a long cast to clear some of the mush on my reel before re-rigging and a 17" bass hit the remainder.

[Chris]

You stopped the bait and the fish lost interest. The bait you where using was not scared of the bass and or it didn't look injured. The bass was not triggered into biting.