Cashing In on School Bass

Cashing In on School Bass

It’s about as basic as bass fishing gets once you learn the ropes.

Story by Matt Williams

 

Few things can be more frustrating and fun to deal with at the same time for us bass junkies than surface feeding school bass.

The frustrating part hinges on the fact that schoolies can be predictably unpredictable as to when they’ll show up, exactly where they’ll be and how long they will hang around once they do make an appearance.

Here one minute.

Gone the next.

Way over there a few minutes later.

That pretty much summarizes the signature style of school bass, minus the part when they launch a feeding frenzy on a hapless pod of shad they have managed to pin against the surface over a creek channel, point or against a timberline.

Things can get really bloody when that happens, mainly because school bass run in wolf packs that may number as few as three or four to more than 100. When one fish plows into the baitfish others are prone join a massacre that sometimes sends food and water sailing a foot or two into the air. Think of it like a bunch of hungry fourth graders racing to the cafeteria when the lunch bell rings, only a whole lot less disorganized.

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