Question for the pros/experts?

[mlvaj]

I've always been curious to the bass that lives up here in MN. I've read all over and people are mentioning that bass school up during the summer months. I figure that since most of those basses are from the south, do largemouths school up here in MN? I know that smallies do but I haven't seen largies school up before or am I wrong? Just looking for some thoughts on this, since I want to improve my bass fishing this year. It'll be nice to know that if they do school up, my chances of catching another fish in the same area will go up.

[mainbutter]

Yes, largemouth bass do school.

I don't know why, but I can rarely get more than one of a group to bite, even if the others don't spook, UNLIKE when I fish smallies which are easy to pull many out from a school.

I also find that largemouth bass don't school in large groups, 2-6 individual fish is pretty common. I find it's pretty rare to see only one bass.

[Cecil]

I think it depends on a lot of things. Lake, season, time of day, where you are fishing. I mean if there are not a lot of bass in a lake that has a lot of good bass spots, chances are less that you will find a school. They will tend to school up more in deep water then they will in shallow. Not that you can't find a shallow school, but in deeper water they can be on a spot half the size of your boat. In shallow water they will typically be in an "area".

[Timmy D]

I'm not a pro or an expert but I know the largemouth school up and you can often catch multiple fish when you find them.

I've been fishing a school of fish on one of my favorite lakes for the last 6 yrs. Every summer they can be found in exactly the same place. It is likely to hit this spot and catch 15 - 20 bass in a short time.

The best days on this spot I have caught over 60 bass in a couple hours. By switching lures and casting angles, the fish just kept biting. It is awesome.

I really believe there are spots like this on every lake, its just a matter of finding them. Unfortunately, I only have 5 or 6 lakes with spots that the fish really pile up on.

Guess I'll just have to keep trying.

[Deitz Dittrich]

while I do not claim to be an expert or Pro, I can agree with the posts above... you bet they school up. And I love to be there when they do.

[mabr]

What a good question. Ive asked myself this many times.

Deitz and the others, you folks have alot more time in MN waters than I do.I started bass fishing down south and I think Ive seen what the original poster was asking.

Down in most of the big impoundments you'll see bass literally busting shad on the surface. Alot of time right with the stripers. Its a race to get there within casting distance before they go down most of the time. There can be schools of 100's following the schools of shad. And they're typically the same size range when you do find an active school. And they stay in the same general area until the bait fish move.

Ive seen what some have mentioned here, getting into a good school of fish in a general area 50'x50' and theres no question it was a school as they seamed to start bitting at the same time and was typically limited to a certain length of time. But have you seen anything similar to what I seen down south and what alot of the outdoor magazines write about? I know when i first started fishing MN i asked a couple of the pros I got to know and they said they never seen it like it is down south. I would think places like Tonka would but I never hear of it.

[Wayne Ek]

My thoughts. In Minnesota we have very few pelagic prey fish that large mouth and smallies target. There is a strong shad population along the Mississippi, but north or west of the metro there are few places that shad play an important part of the smallie/large mouth diet. Our bass will target the shiner run just like walleyes do, but for the most part I feel the bass away from the river system target small panfish and perch most of the time. That's why we see such a great deep weedline bite start to develop in July and go strong right to freeze up. It's not at all uncommon to pull up to a good deep weedline in my area and stick 20 to 25 fish, then leave only to return later in the day and do the same thing. Once you find a deep weedline spot that is holding fish it is usually a spot that will produce year after year. There is some reason that the prey fish are holding on that spot and the bass just follow the food source. Now wouldn't it be nice if all my spots produce durning my tournaments...

[olski]

Great question. In my opinion I'm not sure if largemouth "school" up here or not but my take is this. I think they gravitate more to a spot than a bunch of other bass, "a school" Timmy D kind of helps that point by saying he catches fish in the same spot year after year. I think if you catch a fish in a milfoil mat than move 10 yards down and catch another one it is do to the milfoil not the other fish. I have fished in S. Carolina and down that was and those fish "school" like white bass here in the fall you can have 20 to 30 fish blowing up bait on the surface. Just my opinion.

[gunning]

This is a good thread. Sorry this might be a little long:) I was going to start a thread like this to an extent. I was watching a fishing show and Elite Pro Marty Stone was fishing with Dave Wolak who is from the northeast, I think NY or PA. He said Dave does great on tour but Stone said usually people from up North and Florida tend to struggle on tour because Northern and Florida waters are so unique. He said people from these areas struggle because they are not versatile. So that got me thinking about it.

What’s so different? I know the guys down south fish mainly river and reservoirs systems. If you read BASS you see a ton of articles on fishing summer patterns on off shore structure like deep points, ledges, creek channels, humps, rock ext. These guys are catching schooling fish in 15-20+ ft of water a lot of the time.

Catching bass deep has never been my strength on my home lake, Lake Washington just north east of Mankato. So last year I worked my butt off trying to get better at catching bass deeper. I was throwing deep diving crankbaits, jigs, C-Rigs on all of the "text book" off shore spots in 12-20FOW with little luck. One day it was really hot so I jumped off the front end of the boat, I went straight down and hit the thermocline about 7-8 ft down it felt good. It didn't faze me then that I was fishing below the thermocline so I got back into the boat and continued fishing with no luck.

The other day I read an article about the thermocline and it was about how in the summer most fish activity takes place at or above the thermocline, and you never really want to fish much deeper than it. So all those times I went out and tried to find fish deep I was going too deep. So I guess deep is relative, if you have a dirty lake and the thermocline sets up at 8-10ft on your home lake don't try to fish that rock pile you found in 22ft. Maybe that explains why I have never caught a bass much pass the outside weed line on Washington which ends usually around 10ft. I know I will be paying more attention to my graph and where the thermocline is setting up mid summer.

Down south in the summer because of the current in reservoirs and rivers the thermocline doesn’t set up like it does here in our lakes. Down there fish don’t have to stay above the thermocline to have oxygenated water, they can move deep and set up on structure in deeper water than we see around here or at least on my lake. Maybe up north in MN on clear lakes where the weedline runs deeper and water clarity allows the thermocline to set up deeper allows you to catch bass in 15-20ft, Maybe Wayne EK has some thoughts on this?

Fish do school up here and I wish I could get into a school every time I go out but I might be lucky to find 1 really good school a year.

[st.crioxfishin]

I have only seen largemouth school a few times on natural lakes in terms of chasing baitfish to the surface. Every so often in the summer months I will see the pods of sunfish hanging on a weedline get busted to the surface, but rarely will I see the actual bass breaking the surface. On the river its a different story as you will see fish busting on sand bars and wing dams more often due to the baitfish that are present.

I've also witnessed walleyes chasing tulibees to the surface in the summer months right at sunset, I'm not sure if bass hang out under those tulibee schools too or not.

In fishing lakes down south the past few years, it is definitely more prevalent on the bodies of water that have shad in them (much like wayne eluded to). Last fall on kentucky lake as we idled by small coves, we only stopped to fish the ones with shad flicking in the back of them. If there were no shad flicking, there we no bass busting the surface and in turn it wasn't worth the time to fish it.

Did anyone watch the Elite Series Oneida tournament last year, where the winner found schooling fish on a natural lake? I think those smallmouth and largemouth were busting perch on the surface, but I could be wrong, maybe it was shad. I found that to be interesting since Oneida is a natural lake.

[Deitz Dittrich]

I was on a lake in Wisconsin last summer and saw the coolest school of bass ever. had to have been close to 100 fish, busting minnows on the surface. It lasted for about 5 mins, the only sad thing, the biggest bass I saw was about 6' in length.. But they were on the feed for sure. I cast at them in hopes of a larger fish down deeper but nothing.

[Nick Kuhn]

DD I've seen that on Upper Turtle with LM, and you are correct most of the bass were 6"-10", no big ones. Seen the same thing with white bass on Wapogasset, though I want to say there were closer to 300 of those, and some of them were pretty good size.

[polarsusd81]

Had close to the same thing happen on S. Center, bunch of 6-10 inch bass all in one spot way up shallow. Every cast for 10 minutes my buddy and I caught one. If we didn't hook up on the first bite, we would get a second or even third try at it. Was pretty crazy, even if they were small. After 10 minutes we moved on, but could have very well kept catching them. After about 30 fish in the boat all 6-10 inches though, we wanted to find something bigger.

[Daze Off]

I am just beginning to figure out the deep bite and had one instance last summer where I caught bass on 21 consecutive casts. Not sure if LM do this but smallies will often shut down if you release a fish or drop one and it goes back to the school so I kept the best 5 and let the others go only after the wind had blown me well off the spot. I would let them go and then approach the spot again. Would have been about a 15 lb bag. Let all of them go afterwards of course.

As for Marty Stone's comments about northern fishermen - three letter response: KVD. 'nuff said...

[Duffman]

At my buddies lake, his cabin is close to the water, you can sit at the kitchen table and watch schools of largemouth patrol the shoreline. Not in any big numbers or size of fish, but schools of 4-8 12" bass. Very common to observe at his place.

[mabr]

Stone said usually people from up North and Florida tend to struggle on tour because Northern and Florida waters are so unique. He said people from these areas struggle because they are not versatile. So that got me thinking about it.

.

This makes me laugh big time. SCin-ing here. Enter my first fishers of men on Tonka. Thinking im gonna teach these guys a few things about BASS fishing. Haaa. I got schooled so to say big time. I think Mark S was even ashamed of me. Al Odom was here for that tourney and I was ashamed to tell him I was a SC boy. The whole season went that way for me. Ended up taking a few years off the tourney seen and just try and learn natural lakes. And still trying to figure them out consistantly.

What alot dont realize unless they have fished the south. The weedlines down there (at least my xp) are not like we have here. Some lakes yes but most no.Explains why i never did good on Guntersville or Murry, lots of mill foil.

Talk about neat things to see. try 100 bass in a wolf pack cruising the bank all 3-4 lbrs. Unreal to see it up close. BUT, i wouldnt trade it for the bass fishing we have here. Some dont realize just how good it is, and take it from me who has fished all of the SE its unreal here on a day to day basis.

Stone can say what he wants, KVD is the proof on the northern boys.

[Juan Grande]

I fished with an avid bass fisherman last summer who was originally from the south and he said even though the bass grow bigger down there, he catches a lot more quality 3-5 pound fish in MN.

[CaptZ21]

You have to ad Skeet to the those non southern sucessful anglers. I have no idea how Stone could have said that and meant it. On southern lakes vs nothern lakes, I moved down to Guntersville for the fall til spring, and would argue the point about alot of quality 3 to 5 lbes not to mention 6s, 7s and a personal best (so far) of 8.7 lbs. It has been my experience that coming down to the southern lakes (knock on wood) has be not that difficult of a transition for a "yankee".

[gunning]

I was kind of surprised when he said it on an episode of Fish PAA . I mean you have Ike and KVD both guys form up North and are two of the better guys on tour. If you read IKE's book he talks about the southern "good ol boy" mentality and how he felt he was sort of looked down at because of where he was from and how he acted when he first started out on tour.

[mabr]

LOL I still look down on him how he acts! never will get over that part of his personality.

[Wanderer]

gunning,

I liked your post. Even though I had already figured out not to fish bass "deep" in dirty water, what you posted makes sense.

Thanks.

To the schooling in MN:

I also have to say most of the schooling bass I've been tipped off to visually have been lil guys. Sometimes I have found bass breaking little sunnies out over the lakes deep basin and threw things at them only to catch one after another of < 10 inchers.

Look to the deeper weeds, or rocks to find the bigger fish schooled up on clearer lakes.

[Comit 2]

Oh yea. They school up. Sometimes they are schooled up tight and sometimes they form loose schools but they are schooled up.

A few years ago I ran into a tight school in 12fow just off a stream that lead to a large shallow are. We were throwing Rattle-Raps and catching a Bass per cast. The thing is there would be 2 or 3 following the one on the hook to the boat every time. It was fun for 15min or so. Sometimes they may be spread over a bar and 15-20 feet apart.

[Nick Kuhn]

Time of year could be a factor in the schooling as well. Late fall seems to be a time of year where I either hammer bass or I get skunked. On the best of these days you could put together a 15lb+ bag anchored in one spot.

[st.crioxfishin]

Sorry if this is a little off topic...

I would say there is a learning curve for fishing certain southern bodies of water, at least there was for me. This by no means claims that northern anglers can't compete with southern anglers on those bodies of water, because they can, and do.

example: I grew up fishing natural lakes full of grass. When I first went south to fish a reservoir full of rip rap and not one blade of grass in the lake, I was completely lost and struggled terribly. Three years later after fishing the lake about 15-20 times I've now learned how to catch fish from different structure/cover, but it has taken time. Doing research before getting to the lake and listening/learning from the locals goes a long way.

I would assume that marty stone came off in the wrong way in what he was saying about guys from the north, because he obviously knows that guys from the north can fish, I'm sure he's heard of KVD... However, in saying that, I will also say that the pro tours are made up heavily of guys from the southern states. That could be a reflection of:

a.) everyone and their dog fishes for bass in the south

b.) there are more talented southern anglers in the south than in the north

c.) the national level tournament bass scene is predominantly run in the southen states

In any case, given the time to learn a body of water, I beleive any angler can fish sucessfully no matter where they are from.

[gunning]

St Croix good points, you are probably one of only a few people on this site that actually gets to fish natural lakes, rivers and reservoirs all in the same year. When Marty said that on the show I watched he wasn't trying to cockoff or knock everyone from the North, he was probably just stating a fact. He just said people from up north tend to struggle on tour. I know if you threw me on a body of water that current played a big role I would probably struggle against guys that grew up fishing them. I don't have much experience on rivers. Then throw in tidal waters that might be a whole different ball game too.