DrAloha

Discouraging last week— I’ve probably seen a half dozen big bass with their noses to the bank. I assume they are on their beds, as they will circle back to the same spot when spooked off. But they won’t be in the same place the next day (and I thought they guarded their beds for a minimum of a few days). I’ve thrown the kitchen sink at them for hours and have only gone 1 for 6. They don’t seem interested in anything.

I find hybrid bass really interesting. Yesterday, we had unseasonably warm weather with strong SSW winds before today's drastic cold front. Two years ago, I found that when the wind is blowing like that in the fall, winter, and early spring, I could run into schools of hybrid bass while bank fishing with crankbaits. This is a large oxbow lake with several miles of south-facing shoreline. Sure enough, the hybrid bass were there yesterday (only caught three-- usually catch closer to 10 or so). I can't believe this pattern-- it's such a large lake, it seems akin to finding a needle in a haystack matching these conditions to our one little speck of shoreline. With that being said, I have some questions. Where do these bass go during the summer? Do you think they just so happen to be concentrated at my dock when these conditions are right? Or do you think they would be lined up along the entire south facing shore? How dense do these schools get? I imagine there is some concentration of bait fish they are feeding on-- but I've yet to see large schools of shad like I sometimes do.

Thanks— that’s what it looked like to me, too. I’m used to a few late spawners, but was surprised how many I saw today. Maybe it’s because we’ve had so much rainfall this year. The bream were also on their beds

I went fishing this morning in Western TN. High temps are near 90 today, so I was surprised when I saw pairs of bass (3 to 6 lbs apiece) right up against the bank. I couldn’t coax them to bite (threw 10 different baits for over an hour at one big pair). I caught one not sight fishing on a Senko. So what’s going on? Could these fish still be on beds? They weren’t easily spooked— I could stand right over them. Came back after lunch and they are still in the same spots. The pairs appeared to be circling a small area and would trade off places. I usually can stir up a reaction bite when on beds, but nada