Earlier this week, I headed out with my buddy to chase after some schooling fish he discovered. (Some of you may recognize him from my high school fishing days!). We didn't find any activity til about 10am, and it took a while to figure out what was going on. The area we found was maybe a square half mile of water with fish eating bait everywhere, but it was very spread out. After observing for an hour or so, we learned that there were maybe 3 areas where fish would surface in the same locations repeatedly. This meant you could put a bait in the middle of the feeding frenzy, and also know that your bait is in front of them while they aren't "up", which is good for trying different baits, as schooling fish are often finicky.

 

I spent a good chunk of the morning throwing a gunfish and spook at the breaking fish. I was able to boat one about 2.75lbs, but only had a couple other fish swat at my bait. I tried a flutter spoon around the depth of the thermocline (around 15') in areas with the breaking fish, but that didn't produce either. We also tried a jerkbait, and several types of swimbaits to no avail.

 

Finally, as the action slowed, I tried the ol' super fluke. I have caught schooling fish on them in the past, but jerkbaits and walking baits have always produced way more fish for me. For whatever reason, these fish were big fans of a fluke. While a topwater couldn't even draw a bite during a frenzy, the fluke would actually "call" the fish up after they quit chasing, which I had never seen before with a fluke. I didn't think it made enough disturbance for them to notice from whatever depth they suspend at in between frenzies. I ended up catching 3 or 4 fish in the 2-3lb range before the surface activity came to a screeching half around 12:30. From then until about 3:00, the action was very slow. We couldn't get anything else going, so we just hung out and waited for it to start up again. I was frustrated that I didn't try a fluke earlier, because we were around some big fish, and the fluke was shockingly effective, even when the fish were not showing themselves much.

 

At roughly 3:30, things picked up again. We had the flukes ready to go this time, and things got off to a hot start. By now, we had honed in on "the spot on the spot", where lots of shad and herring death was occurring. We could get the school of fish fired up just by throwing a fluke over top of them, it was incredible. Once one fish was hooked, others would surface and start eating baitfish, which is probably one of the coolest things to witness in bass fishing. Alongside many 2-3lb fish, I landed one close to 4, and my buddy got one close to 5. I did a little on-the-spot rigging, because I always have trouble hooking fish with a fluke on an EWG hook. I took a 2/0 VMC Neko hook, and trimmed down the weedguard. The short pieces of mono would act as a keeper (despite facing the wrong direction) when you pulled them down into the nose of the fluke, rigging it like you would on a jighead. This was a very effective rigging method, we only missed 2 or 3 fish between the two of us.

 

The fish seemed to wise-up to the fluke within an hour or so, and we started to change things up. I was able to get one decent fish on a flutter spoon, but besides that we were having a tough time.  I had a 1/2oz hairjig/underspin in my box that I had never used, and figured now would be a good time to try. I had several strong bites the first few times I brought it through the school, and bowed up on a big fish, but it came off. Since I didn't have any more hairjigs, my buddy rigged up a 4.8" keitech on a half oz underspin. He fished it just like I did the hairjig, with 3-4 fast turns of the handle and then freespooling it for a couple feet, for a fast drop. The fish were all over that swimbait! He was hooking a fish every 2-3 casts, it didn't even matter where he threw it. I tried a 3/8 underspin with a swimbait because I didn't have any more 1/2oz, but I assume the rate of fall just wasn't fast enough to make them react.

 

He finally hung up and broke off the magic underspin, and couldn't get them to go on anything else after that. I rigged my hairjig up again, hoping I could get one of the bigger fish to stay pinned if I did hook one. I finally was able to lay into a big fish on the hairjig, which was our biggest of the day @5.9lbs! It was super neat to catch a big fish on a relatively unconventional method, particularly here in Virginia. It was almost 6:00 at this point and the fish began to slow down again, I was able to get a couple more hits on the hair jig but nothing got the hook. I'm not sure if they swipe at it, or just eat and reject the bait really fast. All in all it was an awesome day of fishing. I already have a good bit of experience with schooling fish, but I think my schooling fish knowledge may have doubled from that experience, I learned a lot!

 

Oh yeah, we broke the 20lb mark too

Seriously Solid Bass. 

Nice write up

 I am also of fan of rigging a fluke like that.

Perhaps check out the Gamakatsu G-Finesse Worm Light Hook w. Tin Keeper.

Works well for open water (spinning) applications as well as drop shot with fluke, caffeine shad & Z-Too as an option to nose hooking.

A-Jay 

 

Nice read. The fish on the Arkansas river are doing same thing. Pinning schools of shad on sand bars. It’s hard to find the holding spot or the spot on the spot. Donkey rig and a  shallow crank bait are working for me.  But I’m gonna have to try a hair jig on them for a change up,  thanks for the idea. 

Nice fish guys!

Pretty sure I found your spot, and a group of kayakers that were there must have known about it too because they floated around that area literally the entire day yesterday. They were determined, but when I was close enough to see I didn't see them catching much. It looked like they were fishing flukes but I never got close enough to really tell. We gave that spot a break when the bite slowed down around mid morning and explored some other parts of the lake without much luck. Hopefully they got on some action! 

 

Jerkbaits produced if the bass were pushing shad to the surface.

I caught several on crankbaits, when they were not crashing shad, several on a chrome rattle trap. My biggest of the day I got with an A-rig. It's been a long time since I've caught an A-rig fish and I caught three in about 20 minutes all out of the same spot. They absolutely hammered the thing! Was hoping for that big bite but they pretty much shut off after that. 

 

Flukes or any other soft plastic they would not touch for some reason. Tried several different sizes weightless and weighted and never got bit. Underspin they wouldn't touch but I didn't have a 1/2oz size so maybe that's why? Still had a great day, somewhere around 20 bass in the boat!