Big Hands, it's the same when I'm casting to open and deep water looking for wolf packing bass. 

The old conundrum - reaction bites versus how many fish did you spook when the bait hit the water.

 

The world may never know.

 

 

Actually - I will say this. In clear water I have seen bass spook when the bait flies over their heads and beyond them. They flee before the bait even hits the water.

I had a few spook last night when my lure landed. Like you, I've seen my mid-air lure spook bass.

 

 

I'm sure I will have a lot of disbelivers but, I scare more fish with a dark lure than I do with a light lure.  We have cormorants were I fish.

Instinct. The bass in my profile pic hit a spinnerbait before I started retrieving. When you practically or literally hit a bass with a lure it has two possible reactions and one is very good for us. It seems to me the bigger the bass, the more likely it is to take the bait because it's not afraid. A couple weeks ago I went to my friend's pond and literally hit a bass in very shallow water with a Plopper. The bass turned and slurped the lure. It was a lovely 4.1 lb., a big bass for that place. I can't credit the Plopper with that bite because all it did was hit the water. The lures with dressed rear hooks are particularly good at teasing strikes before you retrieve.

 

Some of my biggest fish have come pitching to heavy cover like a laydown or lilies. The bait never touches the bottom and the fish is on when I tighten up the line. All that fish did was see the splash and suck in. Pure instinct to take a free meal because they never know when the next one will come along. And bass that are buried in cover have a sense of security. That's a good way to get some big bites even when the bass won't take a reaction bait.

2 hours ago, Swamp Girl said:

I had a few spook last night when my lure landed. Like you, I've seen my mid-air lure spook bass.

 

 

I had a good day of fishing right before the full moon. Fish were shallow and aggressive. I went right after the full moon expecting to do the same. Fish were spooked by my lure and line before it even hit water. I ended up catching a few dinks on a weightless Senko.

15 hours ago, Big Hands said:

I'm gonna venture a guess that fishing in relatively shallow water might be a factor too.

 

Your original question is 'why?'

I can't claim to know 'why' with any degree of certainty. All I can do is spectate, speculate, postulate and react. And I'm probably a little too eager to do the first three.

22 hours ago, Kayak Koz said:

Actually - I will say this. In clear water I have seen bass spook when the bait flies over their heads and beyond them. They flee before the bait even hits the water.

This makes sense as birds are one of the top predators for bass. I think my first instinct would be to take cover any time a shadow passed over if I was worried about being an Osprey's lunch. 

 

Slightly unrelated but interesting tip. One of the top speckled trout guys in our area uses Ospreys to help locate monster trout. His logic is that if you see one hovering in one spot but not committing to the dive, it's probably looking at a fish that it deems too big to eat. In the winter time he catches big fish in shallow water doing this. I wonder if it would work for bass on beds too.