Had an hour or two this PM, and thought I'd go fishing for pike in the river. The river is low, so I found a sand bar just off a current cut. The water was only two feet (or so) deep. Pike love these as ambush places.

   Threw in a spinnerbait ..... and caught two big bass! No pike.

   There was deeper water nearby. There were blowdowns nearby. There was riprap fairly close. But the bass were on the sandbar, and in only two feet of water. That's a very exposed position.

 

   Anyone got any idea why there?             jj

  

I dunno. But I just remembered that the first truly big fish story I had (the sad kind though where she jumps off) was the result of throwing a shallow diving jerkbait around a sandy flat. It made no sense to me why the fish was there upon reflection but at that point in time I was just guilty of throwing aimlessly around. Now a sand bar seems different than a sandy flat. But anyways, maybe there's an answer to both of our queries.

 

I haven't hooked one that big in a while. Maybe I should go back to throwing aimlessly around ?

15 minutes ago, LrgmouthShad said:

 was the result of throwing a shallow diving jerkbait around a sandy flat.

 

I've had some seriously good days catching them on a jerkbait on sandy spots. I have no idea what it is, but they just appear out of nowhere and kill it immediately. Mostly largemouth, but I have caught smallmouth in the sand too. 

They push bait up onto those sandbars and bait feeds on the sandbars. 

Sandbars can provide a good current break where they can sit out of the main flow and wait for food to drift past them. 

28 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

They push bait up onto those sandbars and bait feeds on the sandbars. 

 

   You mean kinda like white bass schools?

  

18 minutes ago, Scott F said:

Sandbars can provide a good current break where they can sit out of the main flow and wait for food to drift past them. 

 

   True. Bigger bass are ambushers.  Then again, so are pike. 

15 minutes ago, jimmyjoe said:

 

   You mean kinda like white bass schools?

  

 

   True. Bigger bass are ambushers.  Then again, so are pike. 

Yes. I've seen more smallmouth do it than largemouth but they will all do it. It breaks the current and allows the baitfish a place to gather out of the current and the bass follow. 

9 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Yes. I've seen more smallmouth do it than largemouth but they will all do it. It breaks the current and allows the baitfish a place to gather out of the current and the bass follow. 

 

   That makes sense. Normally, this sand bar has 7-8 feet of water over it. There's no way that baitfish could find shelter.  Neither could bass "corral" them.

 

   But at two feet of depth?  Oh yeah. 

   Too bad the upper Midwest had to go through such a drought to create conditions in the river like this.  ?   ?  ?     jj