Schooling bass

PNWbasser - freshman

I fish alot of lakes/ponds in the 300 acres and under range in the state of Washington (western side) The main forage is bluegill/perch and in some of the lakes crawdads. We don't have shad or anything like that in most of these lakes and no river/creek channels in a lot of the ones I fish. Do bass still school in bodies of water like that? A good day on the water for me is getting a couple 2 to 4 pounders and maybe a 5 pounder once a year skipping docks and catching isolated bass. Lots of advice on finding schools from tons of experts, but I don't know if that's common in smaller bodies of water.

June 10, 2019 08:20:44 PM
PNWbasser - freshman

Any good video suggestions to watch would be appreciated as well. I would love to go and and have more success than I have been. Summer fishing is hard here and I feel like everyone is tossing senkos under docks and frogs through pads. If I felt confident that I could find schooling bass in deeper water, I would put the time in to learn it. Just curious what other people's experience has been.

June 10, 2019 08:23:59 PM
The Dean - professor

Shad, herring, emerald shiners and perch can cause bass to school. Yellow perch can gang up in big school in the early spring to spawn. Bass will often group up to feed on them when they are doing this. Perch generally go deep in the summer months and you will have to look for schools of bass chasing them in the deeper water. If you can't find this activity in your lake, staying shallow all year is always a great option. Below are some videos I recommend. The color contrast is off temporarily on the forum, so hover your courser below to light up the links. Greg Hackney shallow water seminar and I have two small water seminars.

https://bassu.tv/bass-fishing-video/shallow-water-fishing-all-year-long-greg-hackney

https://bassu.tv/bass-fishing-video/locate-bass-in-ponds-small-lakes-bass-university-basics

https://bassu.tv/bass-fishing-video/bass-fishing-in-small-waters-pete-gluszek

June 11, 2019 12:58:43 PM

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