Lets say you are catching bass in shoreline cover the first hour of daylight on topwater and you are catching bass 300 yards away in 23 feet on an underwater bridge in the middle of the day. Are they the same school of fish that are following the old sunken roadbed up to the shallows early to feed?

There is no way to tell if it's the same school, without transmitter.

50 yards of braid and a balloon, will let you know.

If there is a reason those bass relate to that paticular roadbed, they may leave that area only to spawn. Bass will travel to where they need to and no further. However, they still may find a reason to go shallow in the morning. It's circumstantial. Try to figure it out. You might learn something that could benefit you in various places throughout your lake.

I actually have a similar question to that as well. There have been quite a few days where I can find fish (specifically smallmouth) piled up in one specific creek mouth. After the sun gets high they move somewhere. There is no real dramatic depth change or structure for at LEAST 500 yards from this creek mouth, and the fish are no where on the electronics or in sight. I have driven around this entire area looking at the electronics and its just flat and about 5-9 feet. Do these fish really move all the way out to the nearest drop or strucutre? even if it is that far away?

Several years ago BASS was electronically tagging a few bass before each tournament, then replacing the tagged bass back where it was caught. During the tournament BASS monitored the tagged bass to see if a tournament angler would catch it. The interesting factor with these tagged bass was not 2 bass acted the same, some would hold tight to the spot and not be caught agian, others would be caught at the same spot, most moved around during the event. I remember 1 bass that moved a few miles each day! The majority only moved a few hundred yards and returned briefly to specific spots each day.

The point being bass usually do not move as a school, they move independantly as individuals.

Tom

Anybody ever read iaconellis book? Watch the movie he talks about called Bigmouth its a wealth of scientific underwater footage of what bass do during seasons. Its vhs only but you can usually find one on ebay but rare to find.

Anybody ever read iaconellis book? Watch the movie he talks about called Bigmouth its a wealth of scientific underwater footage of what bass do during seasons. Its vhs only but you can usually find one on ebay but rare to find.

Here is the link to that DVD

http://www.questforadventure.com/products.htm

WRB I remember those. And the one that moved all over the lake. They did it for a whole season if I recall correctly. Very interesting to see how much they would move in 3 days. There was that one that cruised the lake up and down multiple times.

Excellent post